Looking for candidates: Paypal New Ventures Risk

Over the past months I’ve been telling you about my take on risk management, automated decisions, digital goods and various other areas. I am now starting to look for candidates for my team to deal with these exact areas within Paypal – so if you’re one or think you know one, please let me know. Find the formal JD in the eBay site with req number 38550BR. But read on before that - the description in this post is much more important).

The team is Paypal's New Ventures Risk team, in charge of risk management for Paypal's newest, most innovative ventures, leading Paypal's growth in new markets and with new technologies. The role is for a leader of the seller risk aspect of new ventures, dealing with sellers and developers using our most innovative products. Note: though the position is titled "manager", this is not a people management position.

What I’m looking for is results driven, quick thinking do-it-alls who want to be involved with new products, markets and risk challenges within Paypal. You should have the passion for consuming a lot of data and information, be able to learn quickly and identify and define trends in concise terms. You should be analytical and with a quantitative approach but not a data cruncher without any understanding of the big picture – we are playing at all fronts. Know or be able to learn how to drive processes through other people and organizations; working in ambiguous situations and coping with change is a must, as well as an ever changing operating rhythm. This is not your classic 9 to 5 and I’m not your classic 9 to 5 manager.

Experience is not a must (=graduates are also encouraged to apply), definitely not previous experience in risk management. However, please be an avid internet user, preferably a gamer in your past or present. Some security experience or tech savvy is a big plus – don’t get intimidated by developers, architects and tech talk. Impress me by having interesting hobbies out of work that you maintain although you are an aggressive achiever, and by having vast general knowledge (as in: you shout answers at “who wants to be a millionaire” while watching it on TV).

Read the blog. Process. Understand. Talk to me.

The A-Team: building the best risk management teams

WWII basically ended unemployment in the US. Increased wartime production and the drafting of millions of men had created so many new opportunities, that the effect of the great depression was finally countered. It was a time when millions of women would join the work force. They filled traditionally "female" jobs but also opened up many previously "male" jobs, from operating heavy machinery to traveling sales people. In a sense, it was a revolution stemming from necessity, which is often the case even when the necessity doesn't arise because of a world war; someone's next promotion might occur with the same dynamic.

It was in this atmosphere that Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, started working on a personality type test that would help new female workers find the right job for them, where they could be more effective. More than 60 years later, MBTI is a commonly used test to assess personality types and help people of various preferences understand each other's perspective of ideas, data, decision making and planning, among others.