Principal, eBay Strategy

At eBay, we're a global e-commerce leader, changing how the world shops and sells, empowering millions of buyers and sellers across 190+ markets. We're committed to reinventing the future of e-commerce for enthusiasts. The Strategy team sets eBay's strategic direction, understanding customer needs, and crafting differentiating strategies. This Principal role involves leading cross-functional projects, shaping eBay’s strategy, and mentoring a team, requiring pragmatic recommendations and creative problem-solving.

Must Have

• Develop and craft market differentiation strategies for eBay.
• Lead cross-functional strategic projects with executive partners.
• Develop content expertise on key strategic issues.
• Support strategy mobilization and implementation.
• Provide insightful market intelligence and strategic advice.
• Drive fact-based analysis for challenging business problems.
• Lead and mentor a strategy team.
• Prepare and deliver presentations to senior leadership.
• Demonstrate intellectual curiosity and structured thinking.
• Exhibit creative and out-of-the-box problem-solving.
• Possess strong executive presence and clear communication skills.
• Proven ability to lead and mentor a strategy team.
• Comfortable with cross-functional collaboration.
• Outstanding quantitative and qualitative analytical capabilities.
• Ability to handle uncertainty.
• 10+ years of professional experience.
• Minimum 3 years in project management at a top strategy consulting firm.
• MBA or master’s degree in finance or engineering.

Good to Have

• Strong expertise in technology, ideally within e-commerce, retail, payments, or consumer-facing products.

At eBay, we're more than a global ecommerce leader — we’re changing the way the world shops and sells. Our platform empowers millions of buyers and sellers in more than 190 markets around the world. We’re committed to pushing boundaries and leaving our mark as we reinvent the future of ecommerce for enthusiasts.

Our customers are our compass, authenticity thrives, bold ideas are welcome, and everyone can bring their unique selves to work — every day. We're in this together, sustaining the future of our customers, our company, and our planet.

Join a team of passionate thinkers, innovators, and dreamers — and help us connect people and build communities to create economic opportunity for all.

About the team

We are responsible for setting the strategic direction of eBay: our ambition, where we play, and how we win in the market. The team is responsible for deeply understanding the needs of our core buyers and sellers and crafting the strategies that will differentiate eBay relative to our competitors. We work very closely with product, technology, and regional business teams to ensure the strategy is translated into action across the end-to-end customer experience. Our work can be divided into 3 main topics: we develop eBay Inc’s strategy together with eBay’s executives, we run strategic projects to solve key strategic issues supporting select executives at eBay, we closely monitor the competitive environment & trends.

The opportunity: Principal, eBay Strategy, Richmond/London

This is a unique opportunity to play a key role in shaping the strategic direction of eBay. Based in Richmond, UK, Principal, Corporate Strategy is a leader who will lead several cross-functional projects and a small team of strategy professionals based mainly in Europe. You will bring both process and content leadership to strategy projects and act as the point person between Strategy and cross-functional business teams. Within this role, you will have the ability to influence key elements of eBay’s strategy and to help shape the strategic direction of eBay. The ideal candidate has a track record of making pragmatic, concrete recommendations with real world implementation experience. It is critical for the role that the candidate has strong analytic skills and is excellent in developing creative/ out-of-the-box and well-thought-out solutions for challenging business problems.

Role responsibilities:

• Strategy Development: Develop the strategies for eBay to differentiate itself in the market. This will include crafting the strategies, developing the key initiatives to support the strategies and working closely with key eBay constituencies to gain consensus.
• Project leadership: Independently, lead cross-functional projects involving executive and senior partners from various part of the organization.
• Thought leadership: Develop content and topic expertise, as well as perspectives on issues important to eBay’s strategy. Structure problems. Develop creative solutions to challenging business problems
• Strategy Mobilization: Work with the eBay line organization as needed to support mobilization and implementation of the business strategies.
• Market and Competitive Analysis: Develop insightful market intelligence about key industry trends (technology, competitors, consumers, regulatory, etc.) and advise the organization of their strategic implications.
• Business Analytics: Drive business judgment, market understanding, problem solving, and fact-based analysis to identify, prioritize, structure, and solve challenging business problems.
• Team Leadership: Lead and mentor a driven strategy team in the development and execution of critical initiatives
• Communication: Develop storylines for presentations, prepare and deliver presentations to senior leadership
• Leading through uncertainty: Self-direct as well as manage resources on the strategy team and across the organization to deliver superior end-products in a dynamic industry and corporate environment

Job Requirements:

• Intellectual curiosity
• Excellence in structured thinking, developing sensible, creative solutions to challenging strategic business problems. Creativity and “out of the box” thinking that drives innovation. The ability to “see around corners” and “connect the dots” that enable business to proactively drive business
• Ability to form clear, well-reasoned points of view, paired with the openness to evolve those views based on new information and insights
• Strong executive presence and ability to communicate strategy clearly and simply. Ease with executive-level interactions. Ability to create clear and simple storyline
• Proven track record to lead and mentor a driven strategy team in the development and execution of key initiatives. Ability to lead, empower and mentor project team members
• Comfort in reaching out and prioritizing cross-functional collaboration in a highly matrixed environment
• Outstanding analytical capabilities (quantitative and qualitative), ability to generate key insights
• Comfort in handling uncertainty
• Highly collaborative – be fun, and easy to work with!

Qualifications

• Proven leader with 10+ years of professional experience; a minimum of 3 years at a top strategy consulting firm in a project-management role is required
• MBA or master’s degree in a relevant field (e.g., finance, engineering) is required
• Strong expertise in technology, ideally within e-commerce, retail, payments, or consumer-facing products, is highly desirable