Meg Whitman

Meg Whitman, CEO of EBay, started her career by learning from numerous companies. She was often the new employee in many organizations. She began her career in brand management at Proctor & Gamble. This is where she learned the very valuable listen that customers come first. Then, Whitman went on to be a business management consultant for Bain. Bain was a decentralized environment. Meg Whitman learned that collaborating with others is a better way to get things done then controlling your employees. All of these experiences helped Whitman acquire these valuable traits of listening, learning, collaboration, and building relationships. She learned that one must influence people to be a successful leader.

Meg Whitman took these valuable lessons that she learned and put them into effect at eBay. She became the CEO of eBay in 1998 when it had only 30 employees with revenues of approximately $4 million. By 2008, the company, with her running as CEO, grew to approximately 15000 employees with revenues around $8 billion. She accomplished this by reorganizing the structure of the company but splitting it into 23 business categories and assigned executives to each. Within these subcategories she included around 35000 subcategories. She did this in order to make the eBay website as simple as possible by breaking it down to the bare essentials and rebuilding it from there.

These accomplishments are what she is best known for, however, for those who truly follow and look up to her know her as a transformational leader. She inspires the people around her and especially women because she has accomplished so much in life. She has shown that women can make it to the top in the business world and that they can do so much more if they really wanted to. She demonstrates her versatility by campaigning for the position of governor of California, raising awareness around issues like the environment, marriage, abortion, marijuana, illegal immigration, and infrastructure.

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