PayPal Stories Archive

 

This month, we are featuring Marcia Morales-Jaffe as part of our Women Leaders at PayPal series. Marcia is the SVP, Chief People Officer at PayPal.

 

A: As a newly independent company with a bold and inspiring mission and vision to democratize money and help change the lives of millions of people around the world, we have an unparalleled opportunity to forge a new culture for PayPal. As Chief of People I’m responsible for helping to architect our new company culture, one that inspires our employees to achieve our transformational mission and vision, and anchors us in our cultural values of collaboration, innovation, wellness and inclusion.

 

I was born in Bolivia and when I was two-years-old, my father moved the family to England and later on to Venezuela. I met my husband in college, and we came to the U.S. for graduate school at Indiana University. Once he finished school, we moved to France so he could complete his postdoctoral work. Eventually, we moved back to the U.S., where we settled down in South Florida and started our family. Living in foreign countries, meeting people of different cultures, understanding different perspectives, and seeing the unique ideas that come from various backgrounds has helped shaped my own perspectives.

 

I worked in consulting for McKinsey & Company for many years, but took a break to spend time with my family -- I didn’t want to miss out on raising my boys. When they started elementary school, I had more time on my hands so I co-founded Jaffe & Kern, a boutique consulting firm servicing clients in financial services, technology and retail. After doing that for three-and-a-half years, I reconnected with McKinsey and joined the Miami office in a role on the people side. I was responsible for recruiting, staffing and training and I loved it. When I left McKinsey four years later, I looked for a role that sat at the intersection of business and human resources.I found that at World Fuel Services (WFS), which at the time was a small company, and I helped the founder and CEO grow the business to become a Fortune 100 company.

 

After 12 years at WFS, a recruiter called me about the Chief People Officer opportunity at PayPal. I was happy at WFS and wasn’t interested in exploring other opportunities -- at first. But ultimately, there were three reasons I joined PayPal. First, the fact that PayPal was independent for the first time in more than a decade meant that we could chart our own course. Second, when I met PayPal CEO Dan Schulman, I realized he was an exceptional leader with a clear vision and a passion for making a positive impact on the world. Third, meeting the management team at PayPal was what finally convinced me. Dan’s vision for PayPal was really inspiring, but it was massive and I wasn’t sure it could be achieved. But meeting the management team convinced me that this team could really carry out Dan’s vision.

 

As a female executive at a leading tech company, an energy company and someone who has co-founded her own business, it might surprise people to know that until joining PayPal, most of my career choices have been following my husband's choices. My husband is an environmental researcher, and there have always been fewer opportunities in his field. So he always had first pick in terms of where we would live based on where he had career opportunities. After we got married, for example, we moved to Indiana so he could pursue his degree at the Indiana University -- which was a top school in his field. For computer science, which was my degree, Indiana University wasn’t a top school. So I ended up doing an MBA there instead. Then, my husband was offered a great opportunity in France to continue his graduate work. So we picked up and moved to France for a year. Soon after, we moved back to Venezuela – because he had a moral obligation to repay the government agency that had funded his PhD with a full scholarship. When we came back to the U.S. seven years later – it was because he was on sabbatical and the best place to continue his research was in South Florida. So, once again I followed. I worked at McKinsey at the time and they didn’t yet have an office in Miami, but I was lucky that they let me keep my job and work remotely. But despite the fact that I didn’t always have the first choice on where to be based, I was always able to make the best out of it.

 

First, allow serendipity to play a role in your life. Some of the best opportunities have come to me not as a result of careful planning, but because I was open to things serendipitously happening. Second, it’s very important to work to have a good name and leave a good impression so that people will always have positive things to say about you. To make a name for yourself, always strive to do great work -- no matter what you’re doing -- and over-deliver. I believe that has been really important in my life and it’s how I’ve been able to find new jobs in different industries -- across consulting and professional development and between fuel services and tech -- no matter where I lived.

 

I would highly recommend taking the gender blind approach. I’ve had many mentors and sponsors in my life. Interestingly, my sponsors have been almost exclusively male. This is a little surprising, because I myself feel a responsibility to sponsor other women. In general, women feel it’s important to establish these types of relationships with other women that are further ahead in their careers. But I have worked in fields that are very male dominated and have typically been in the minority. So while I try to make a difference for the women I work with, that has never stopped me from actively seeking mentors and sponsors by being gender blind. If I only wanted women sponsors and mentors – I probably would have only had one or two, but because I took a gender blind approach, I was lucky to have many great mentors and sponsors in my life.