Devin Norse Wenig (born 1966) is an American business executive. From July 2015 to September 2019, Wenig was president and CEO of

eBay eBay Inc. ( , often stylized as ebay) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that allows users to buy or view items via retail sales through online marketplaces and websites in 190 markets worldwide. ...

. From April 2008 to August 2011, Wenig was CEO of Thomson Reuters Markets, the financial and media businesses of Thomson Reuters Corporation. He is a director of

General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...

and its subsidiary Cruise Automation, an autonomous vehicle company.

Early life

Devin Norse Wenig was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, New York, the son of Carol Wenig and Jeffrey Wenig, a toxicologist, and founder and chief executive of Nastech Pharmaceutical Company of Hauppauge, Long Island. Wenig earned a bachelor's degree from

Union College Union College is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Schenectady, New York, United States. Founded in 1795, it was the first institution of higher learning chartered by the New York State Board of Regents, and second in the s ...

, and a JD degree from

Columbia University School of Law Columbia Law School (CLS) is the law school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university in New York City. The school was founded in 1858 as the Columbia College Law School. The university is known for its legal scholarship dating ba ...

Career

At age 23, following his father's unexpected death, Wenig took over as CEO of then-struggling Nastech Pharmaceutical, raising $5 million in venture capital. After a year as CEO, he recruited a healthcare CEO and joined the law firm

Cravath Swaine & Moore Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP (known as Cravath; ) is an American white-shoe law firm headquartered in New York City. The firm has additional offices in London and Washington, D.C. History In 1854, former college classmates William H. Seward (lat ...

. In 1993, Wenig joined

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

, where he remained until 2011, becoming the company's no. 2 executive. From June 2006 to April 2008, Wenig was COO and a board member of Reuters Group plc. He assisted with the merger of Reuters Group with the Thomson Corporation, and then from April 2008 to August 2011, Wenig was CEO of Thomson Reuters Markets. Wenig joined as president of eBay's global marketplaces business in September 2011. When Wenig joined eBay, it had 99 million active users. During his time as marketplace chief, this rose to nearly 160 million, by focusing on "m-commerce", shopping on mobile devices. In October 2014, it was announced that once the eBay/

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support E-commerce payment system, online money transfers; it serves as an electronic alter ...

demerger was complete, Wenig would become CEO of eBay, replacing John Donahoe. Wenig took over as CEO in July 2015 after eBay spun off PayPal. In April 2018, he was elected to the

' board of directors. In September 2019, Wenig unexpectedly stepped down from his position of CEO at

, amid pressure from activist investors to break the company apart, and was immediately succeeded as interim CEO by Scott Schenkel, eBay's CFO. An internal eBay investigation found that, while Wenig’s communications were inappropriate, there was no evidence that he knew in advance about or authorized the actions that would later become the cyberstalking case. As the Company previously announced, there were a number of considerations leading to his departure from the Company. He received a $57 million

golden parachute A golden parachute is an agreement between a company and an employee (usually an upper executive) specifying that the employee will receive certain significant benefits if employment is terminated. These may include severance pay, cash bonuses, ...

package. In June 2021, he was named to the

Salesforce Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics, artificial intelligence, and ap ...

Global Advisory Board.

Cyberstalking incident

A cyberstalking and harassment campaign against the owners of the online newsletter ''ECommerceBytes'' occurred in 2019. This eventually led to charges against seven members of eBay's global security team. The harassment began after an article was published in ''ECommerceBytes'' about eBay's litigation against Amazon. Wenig texted a communications executive "If you are ever going to take her CommerceBytes writer Ina Steinerdown... now is the time." A subsequent

cyberstalking Cyberstalking is the use of the Internet or other electronic means to stalk or harass an individual, group, or organization. It may include false accusations, defamation, slander and libel. It may also include monitoring, identity theft, thr ...

and harassment campaign against the newsletter's authors led to charges against seven members of eBay's global security team. Wenig was not charged in the case.

Recognition

In 2019, Wenig was ranked #100 in a ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

'' list of America's 100 most innovative leaders. He was ranked eighth in Retail Info Systems' 2017 list of "Retail's 10 Best CEOs".

Personal life

On 28 March 1993, Wenig married Cindy Lee Horowitz, a lawyer, and fellow graduate of

in a

ceremony A ceremony (, ) is a unified ritualistic event with a purpose, usually consisting of a number of artistic components, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan language, Etruscan origin, via the Latin . Religious and civil ...

at the Huntington (Long Island) Jewish Center.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wenig, Devin 1966 births American corporate directors EBay employees Living people Union College (New York) alumni Columbia Law School alumni People from Flatbush, Brooklyn Businesspeople from New York (state) New York (state) lawyers Directors of eBay 20th-century American Jews Cravath, Swaine & Moore people American chief executives American chief operating officers American chief executives of Fortune 500 companies 21st-century American Jews