Facebook recruits a new director (or two) from eBay

December 16, 2008 | Eric Eldon

Daniel Levy is the new director of risk management at social network Facebook. He has formerly held senior leadership positions at eBay-owned online payment company Paypal. In his new role, Levy (pictured) will be working with the Facebook operations team to figure out how to help the company manage risk, especially in terms of its finances. Among other things, he’ll be analyzing how to protect the company’s advertising revenue stream, drawn from more than 10,000 advertisers.

It’s the latest move by Facebook to operate like a public company, even though it doesn’t plan to go public for years. Public companies typically have high-placed managers to help executives understand what risks they face.

Meanwhile, I’m also hearing that Facebook may hire another Ebay manager, Greg Isaacs (no, not that one), to replace Benjamin Ling, the former marketing leader for Facebook’s developer platform. Isaacs has helped open auction site eBay to third-party developers. At Facebook, Isaacs would be in charge of marketing Facebook’s effort, if he’s offered the job.

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About the Author, Eric Eldon

Eric currently covers digital media technology and business, especially what's happening on social networks and their platforms. He writes and edits stories about lots of other stuff, too. He started at VentureBeat in the spring of 2007, half a year or so after Matt Marshall left his reporting job at the San Jose Mercury News to found the site. Eric previously cofounded a now-failed startup called Writewith, that was building editorial software for newspapers and other groups of writers.

  • re: Isaacs, since that's not even news yet, I question whether it's responsible reporting. you're potentially inserting yourself into the story (before it's really even a story), with possible impact on both hiring manager, hiree, or other unnamed candidates. might suggest you hold off on such stories until they're final. if you're going to bother reporting on it, perhaps provide more newsworthy background on the work they've done in the past. greg & dan are both solid.
  • Dave, are you serious? The press regularly covers potential candidates for jobs -- go check out the ubiquitous coverage of potential Yahoo CEO candidates and potential presidential cabinet picks for more on that.

    It would be irresponsible of me *not* to publish.
  • sorry, i guess maybe this is common practice, but still i wonder what happens if/when someone reports on potential hires that don't happen, and/or what happens to other candidates in consideration who aren't covered. feels a little lopsided if you're reporting that prior to them naming someone, and seems like it could impact the outcome...
  • DC
    Regardless, having working with Greg before- he is perfect for the job and someone that I would want to work for.
  • Dave S
    Are you kidding me? Directors from eBay? Anyone in the valley can tell you how useless a "director" from eBay is. Might as well hire a PR associate from Yahoo. Facebook is the next Google? How about the next Friendster?