PayPal Stories Archive

 

Many of the professional skills I possess today I owe to my time in the U.S. Marine Corps. It was there that I honed my ability to motivate teams and to think critically. During my transition to the civilian workforce, I was fortunate to have the support and guidance of veteran and private sector mentors who helped me understand how to translate those skills into the ones that employers were seeking in order to build a successful, long-term career. As the acting chair of Serve, PayPal’s Veteran’s Group, I’ve tried to bring many of these values to our company and have seen firsthand the benefit that comes from matching the right people with the right opportunities.

 

That’s why I am so proud that PayPal, along with several other Silicon Valley giants, has partnered with BreakLine Education, a social venture designed to help veterans transition from military service to careers in Silicon Valley. The official launch of BreakLine and the inaugural edition of the program kicked off last week and will run through April 1. Participating companies include Andreessen Horowitz, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, PayPal, and Salesforce, as well as faculty members at Stanford. Together we will be helping 24 veterans from all five branches of the military develop their business acumen and build a professional network within leading technology companies.

 

The veterans will spend one week with each partner over the course of the program, experiencing a combination of classroom-based learning, a “lab” for real-time problem-solving in teams, and a significant amount of professional networking with Silicon Valley managers and senior executives. BreakLine and its partners collaborated on the curriculum in an effort to put seasoned, accomplished veterans on a fast track to roles that are commensurate with their experience and potential.

 

PayPal is hosting this esteemed group on campus during the week of March 14, 2016. Nina Swanson and her team have built an impactful, powerful agenda for the week that will give the participants a crash course in PayPal, including our business, our culture and our vision. We are very pleased that several members of the Executive Staff, including Dan Schulman, our president and CEO, Marcia Morales-Jaffe, our Chief People Officer, and James Barrese, our current CTO, will be leading sessions and introducing the veterans to this great company.

 

BreakLine’s program not only aims to match high-potential veterans with exciting professional opportunities, but it also creates a new pipeline of top talent for companies like ours. I know that the veterans in this program have been decorated for heroic bravery and unparalleled service to their country, and I look forward to watching them be recognized as the standard-setters in Silicon Valley.