Stephanie Tilenius

Stephanie Tilenius is vice president and general manager for merchant services at PayPal, an eBay company. PayPal enables any individual or business with an email address to securely, easily and quickly send and receive payments online.

An eBay employee since early 2001, she is responsible for the strategy, growth, and financial performance of PayPal’s merchant services group, the business unit providing payment solutions to small and large e-commerce merchants.

Before eBay, Tilenius was senior vice president of sales and marketing for PlanetRx.com, a company she co-founded and took public on the NASDAQ in 1999. Previously, she was vice president of business and product development for Firefly, a software start-up that was sold to Microsoft Corp. in 1997. Early in her career, Tilenius spent several years as an investment banker at Deutche Bank Alex Brown, primarily focusing on software and telecom. In this capacity, she worked on the Initial Public Offering for America Online in 1992, and she subsequently decided to join its corporate development group where she managed mergers, venture investments and strategic partnerships.

Tilenius graduated with high honors from Brandeis University where she earned both her bachelor’s degree in economics and her master’s degree in international finance. She also received her master’s in business administration from Harvard Business School. Tilenius also spent time as a presidential management intern through a two-year fellowship with the U.S. government where she worked for Treasury Secretary Brady and Carla Hills on Japan-U.S. trade negotiations.