PayPal hires Geoff Seeley as CMO

PayPal has appointed Geoff Seeley as CMO, effective February 26.

Seeley oversees the global marketing team across PayPal’s family of brands, including Venmo. He reports to Diego Scotti, EVP and GM of consumer group, global marketing and communications at PayPal. 

He steps in for Leanne Sheraton, who’s worked at PayPal since April 2013, most recently serving as CMO since May 2022.

In a LinkedIn post, Sheraton shared that she’s stepping down to take a career break.

Seeley previously served as global CMO and communications officer at Block subsidiaries Cash App and Afterpay. He started at Afterpay in February 2020 and expanded his remit to include Cash App following Block’s acquisition of the company two years later. In August 2017, he joined Airbnb as global head of marketing.

Cash App and Afterpay didn’t respond to requests for comment in time for publication.

Seeley’s appointment follows PayPal’s hiring of Rachel Kobetz as its first chief design officer in September and Alex Chriss as president and CEO in August.

In October, it chose GroupM as its global media agency of record after a year-long review.

In late January, PayPal unveiled six AI-powered commerce tools that it will roll out throughout the year: two that speed up checkout for users with profiles and guests; Smart Receipts with recommendations from merchants for more items to purchase; an offers program that advertises products based on purchasing behaviors; a cashback program called CashPass and Venmo business profiles that users can subscribe to, rank and receive promotions from.

In early February, PayPal reported a 9% increase in revenue for Q4 up to $8.03 billion compared to last year’s $7.38 billion. However, its full-year guidance still fell below analyst expectations.

It joined many other tech companies in laying off 9% of its workforce, or about 2,500 employees, at the end of January.