Dive Brief:
- Payments giant PayPal on Monday disclosed details of a compensation package for its acting Chief Financial Officer Gabrielle Rabinovitch, which include an annual base salary of $750,000, a target bonus of 125% of her base salary, and equity grants valued at $2.5 million, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.
- Rabinovitch was appointed last month to take over as interim finance chief after the San Jose, California-based company announced its then freshly-minted CFO, Blake Jorgensen, was taking medical leave a little over a month after he took the company’s finance helm.
- The payments pioneer is handing its interim CFO a comparatively rich package, two executive compensation experts said. “It’s very generous and highly formalized for what should be temporary,” Shawn Cole, president of executive search firm Cowen Partners, wrote in an email. “They must expect her to be interim for a while.”
Dive Insight:
Rabinovitch’s recent appointment marks her second stint this year as interim CFO for PayPal. Until Jorgensen joined, Rabinovitch temporarily replaced long-time PayPal CFO John Rainey after he left to take the financial reins at Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart.
In addition to taking on the acting CFO role, she continues to act as senior vice president, capital markets, investor relations, and treasurer, the company has said. Rabinovitch was 43 at the time of her appointment, according to a SEC filing.
On Sept. 27, the PayPal board’s compensation committee approved pay terms also laid out in a letter agreement signed electronically by Rabinovitch and PayPal CEO Dan Schulman, according to the SEC filing. The $2.5 million equity award is comprised of restricted stock units (RSUs) and performance-based restricted stock units (PBRSUs) with the RSU grant vesting over three years and the PBRSU grant vesting in March 2026, according to the filing.
Two elements of the structure are more in keeping with a long-term than an interim CFO, Cole wrote in an emailed response to CFO Dive questions. Most interims are paid monthly while Rabinovitch’s pay is annualized, Cole wrote.
In addition, typically a current employee-turned-interim like Rabinovitch would have only received a bump in base salary, he wrote, whereas PayPal gave their interim equity awards. “This doesn’t say temporary,” Cole wrote.
The size of the equity awards is also notable, Josh Crist, co-managing partner of executive search firm Crist Kolder Associates said. “It’s a huge amount of retentionary equity that is meant to reward over a long period of time,” Crist wrote in an email, also asserting that it suggests she could have more than the typical interim’s staying power in the CFO seat. “I cannot speculate...but I wouldn’t be surprised if the interim tag is eventually taken off,” Crist said.
Jorgensen got an even more generous compensation package. Rabinovitch’s annual base salary of $750,000 matches that of Jorgensen’s, but his compensation also included a $6 million new hire cash bonus on top of equity grants valued at $10 million, according to a SEC filing.
Rabinovitch and a company spokesperson both declined to comment further on the compensation package and details around Jorgensen’s leave.
