Apple's e-commerce chief leaves for eBay
It's beginning to look like Apple's executive offices have a revolving door at the entrance. The company recently announced that Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts will be heading to Apple to be the new senior VP of Retail and Online Stores; now AllThingsD reports that the man who was responsible for design, product management and development of Apple's e-commerce platform, RJ Pittman, is moving to eBay.
Sources told AllThingsD that the timing of Ahrendts' hiring and the departure of Pittman was entirely coincidental. Pittman will be going into a new position at eBay as the chief product officer of eBay Marketplaces. eBay Marketplaces President Devin Wenig said that the hire highlights eBay's efforts to improve the design of the platform across desktop and mobile devices, noting that, "We're placing a lot of emphasis on the user experiences, and so this feels like a natural evolution."
Pittman, who will report to Wenig starting next month, said "I loved what I was doing at Apple; it's a great company ... but eBay is on a completely different level by an order of magnitude when it comes to e-commerce." It's not the first big move for Pittman; just three years ago, Pittman defected to Apple from Google, where he held the position of director of Product Management.
