Lorrie Norrington has been a leader in numerous companies either as a board member, CEO or in some other leadership post. Her leadership has transformed the fortunes and directions of most companies. Perhaps eBay is one of the most popular companies that she is associated with as a business leader and manger. EBay Incorporation and many other subsidiaries that it holds offer online services in the selling of services and goods, online communication and online payments on an international basis. The company’s operations are divided into two-online payments services and marketplace services.
Lorrie Norrington is currently an elected Board member at DIRECTV as from 10th February, 2011. She serves on the board in a class III director’s position (Business Wire, 2011). Prior to her election Ms. Norrington had been acting as a director in McAfee Incorporation as from 2009. Her Presidency at eBay began in 2008 January and ran up 2010 September when she opted out on personal and family reasons (Kate, 2009). Additionally, Ms. Norrington worked as the CPO (Chief operating officer) of the company’s marketplaces as from January to July, 2008.
During this period she led eBay’s operations on eBay’s internet sites in the global network. Prior to taking up the presidency at eBay, she had worked as eBay’s international president in the Asia-Pacific and Europe region as from 2006 June to 2008 January. Before joining eBay she had also served as the CEO and president of Shopping.com Incorporation. This had been a comparison shopping site prior to its acquisition by eBay in 2006. Prior to Shopping.com Ms. Norrington had been the executive vice-president of Intuit Incorporation where she served her executive tenure in the CEO’s office.
Intuit Incorporation is a financial and business management company mainly dealing in software. Ms. Norrington had worked from 2001 August to 2005 August before joining Shopping.com. Prior to joining Intuit Incorporation Ms. Norrington had started her career at General Electrical Company where is had worked for a period exceeding twenty years under different executive mandates. She successfully worked under a broad spectrum of businesses and industries. Professionally, Ms. Norrington is Business administration, Bachelor of Science Degree holder. Her bachelors Degree was attained from the University of Maryland. Ms.Norrington also holds a Business Administration Master’s Degree. Her Master’s Degree was acquired at Harvard School of Business.
Acting as the Chief of eBay’s flagship business at a value of $5.6 billion dollars, Ms. Norrington was able to achieve tremendous growth for eBay through the successful closure of various acquisitions across Asia. She also improved the payment method and mode for approximately 25 million sellers in the region, and this bid also included the improvement of search. Through her management eBay’s profits underwent a recovery in 2008 fiscal year (EBay Q3 2008 Financial Earnings, 2000). Despite the stock’s 10% percent drop, her performance was still upbeat, because the initial conditions seemed to point towards a worse scenario prior to her intervention.
Her strategies brought a turn around to the company and enhanced sales through her brilliant ideas such as the eBay reward program, which rewarded eBay clients through redeemable scheme that acquired points on any transaction participation. Her participation in CSR programs and other eBay non-profit initiatives also helped improve the company’s corporate social responsibility image throughout her presidency and of major impact was her effort to reward active users of eBay’s platforms. As a female, business leader she has featured in the top ranking most influential women as ranked by the Fortune Magazine (Fortune Magazine, 2010).
She has been an influential woman not only to the American society, but even in the Pacific and Asian eBay markets where she has served as eBay’s regional president. Her success in business is a great boost to the feminine world of business leaders and she exemplifies successful women in the corporate world as well as in society. She serves as an encouragement for women in the corporate world who can emulate her steady career which has seen her rise from company to company whilst on the helm of management of each firm and task that she took over.
In a press briefing, Donahue-the new acting eBay’s president-congratulated Lorrie noting her exemplary performance at eBay’s marketplaces, despite the speculations of some quarters about her failure at eBay (Steiner, 2010). In his statement Donahue stated that:“Lorrie has led eBay Marketplaces through significant fundamental change as we drive a multiyear turnaround strategy to enhance the shopping experience for buyers and sellers and evolve eBay as a global ecommerce and mobile commerce leader. For personal family reasons, Lorrie made a decision to do what’s best for eBay and for her family, and I respect that.
I wish her the very best and thank her for many contributions to our company and our nearly 92 million active eBay users (Press Release repository, 2010).Conclusively, this is indeed an appreciation that she had indeed done a lot for eBay and if there were any mishaps or downs in the management then that should be counted as normal challenges in the dynamic world of businesses. Still at Fortune Magazine’s number forty-list of top business women leaders, is sure proof that indeed Lorrie is a powerful business woman that has influenced the business world through her steady rise in the corporate world.
References
March, 2011 from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_20110211/ai_n56860268/
EBay Q3 2008 Financial Earnings (2000),. EBay 2008 Third quarter earnings, retrieved on 24thMarch, 2011 from http://www.slideshare.net/kteare/ebay-2008-q3-earnings-presentation
March, 2011 from http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/fortune/0909/gallery.most_powerful_women.fortune/40.html
Kate, S. (2009),. McAfee Incorporation appoints Lorrie Norrington to the Board of Directors, retrieved on 24th March, 2011 from http://www.mcafee.com/es/about/news/2009/q4/20091201-02.aspx
Press Release repository (2010),. EBay announces marketplaces management changes, retrieved on 24th March, 2011 from http://cirnews.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/ebay-announces-marketplaces-management-change/
Steiner, I. (2010),. EBay loses key executive: Marketplace president Lorrie Norrington, retrieved on 24th March, 2011 from http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2010/9/1285104277.html
