PayPal Stories Archive

 

As part of PayPal’s state government relations team, Devin Whitney travels the country interacting with public policy makers, developing partnerships with state and local government, and seeking opportunities for corporate expansion and economic development. The job description is fairly straightforward on paper, but Devin’s role goes beyond this.

 

At a time when the issue of equality – be that gender, racial or social – is hotly debated across the nation, Devin is charged with understanding local legislation and ensuring the rights of our employees – and the extended community – are protected.

 

We recently sat down with Devin to learn more about his position at PayPal and the vital role he played in the company’s decision to withdraw plans for expansion in North Carolina.

 

A:  I’ve been with PayPal just over four years and am a senior manager in state government relations. The team manages relationships with legislators and regulators at the state and local levels. I also work with our Sales team to find local and state government partners interested in using PayPal.

 

In addition to that, I help to manage economic development and meet with agencies to see what kind of opportunities exist in areas where we’re considering opening new facilities.

 

I was part of the larger team that worked on the original plans for expansion into North Carolina. About two years into the project and just five days following our announcement to open a global operations center in Charlotte, the state of North Carolina passed legislation that allowed for discrimination against the LGBT community. I happened to be at a working offsite with my colleagues when the news broke – we had just wrapped our meetings and I think it was right around 8 pm. Frustrated by the news and concerned about how this would impact our future employees, I said that we should perhaps reevaluate our plans for expansion into a state with newly passed laws that didn’t align with our organization’s vision for equality and inclusion. The team was immediately supportive, but we had to map out our options and review possible outcomes before making a decision that would have a lasting impact on the company, our employees and our customers.

 

The first option was to stay and fight – move forward with our expansion and lobby for equal rights for future employees once in the state. The second option was to withdraw our plans for expansion and scrap the work that got us to this point.

 

I helped provide the background research our Executive Leadership Team needed to weigh risks and the potential fallout of these two options. We spent time – a great deal of time – discussing the positive and negative implications of each option and it soon became clear that the law wasn’t going to be repealed. At that point, our CEO Dan Schulman – in consultation with his Executive Staff – realized that we wouldn’t be able to maintain a facility in North Carolina without sacrificing our vision for equality.

 

At the end of the day, I think the decision to withdraw our plans for expansion in North Carolina was a bold and necessary stand the company needed to take - a great way to demonstrate that we’re truly committed to equality and inclusion. Companies often take stands or make statements on political issues, but rarely are they thrust into a situation where the consequences are this significant. Our business needed to make a decision in this situation – this law not only went against our core values, but threatened the expansion of a much needed operations center. Ultimately, Dan felt so strongly about upholding our values that he made the decision to abandon our planned expansion into North Carolina.

 

Linda Dugan, an executive in our Omaha Operations Center, and I have been working on passing a bill the past three years. We’ve been working with Lincoln, Neb. Senator Adam Morfeld, who filed the bill, to extend protections for employees based on gender identity and sexual orientation. The bill focuses on civil and human rights, but is also very much a business issue. The legislation made it to the Senate floor and our hope is to get it to the Governor’s desk this next legislative session.

 

In 2014, I was also part of the team that spoke out against Arizona’s “religious freedom bill” (Arizona SB 1062), which would have allowed businesses to refuse service to gay and lesbian customers. We were active in opposing a similar bill in Indiana, too.

 

I grew up in a household where my parents prioritized and emphasized equality, diversity, and tolerance - that was the environment I grew up in and the values I carry with me today. I am passionate about working to ensure that everyone has equal rights in the workplace and I see that, as a company, we absolutely do cherish and hold these values as important aspects of our identity and culture. If you’re not willing to act on the values you claim as an organization, you have to wonder how committed the business is to the culture it’s trying to create. I feel fortunate knowing my company is willing to make bold moves in the fight for justice. I’ve also seen that we’re moving towards become a more values-based company – especially our corporate value of inclusion – and there’s no better way to demonstrate this than to focus more generally on eliminating discrimination.

 

Most of the projects I’ve worked on have been political, business or economics related. The work we did to withdraw our plans from North Carolina was about the greater social good and supporting a community that was being discriminated against - it’s hard to find another success that is even close to comparable.