With PayPal stock down 80%, finance chief Jamie Miller steps in as interim CEO
Good morning. Turnover continues in the Fortune 500, with PayPal offering the latest example of boards turning to finance leadership during periods while under pressure.
The payments giant announced on Tuesday that CEO Alex Chriss is stepping down after two and a half years. Enrique Lores, CEO of HP Inc., is set to take over on March 1. PayPal’s chief financial and operating officer, Jamie Miller, will serve as interim CEO.
The move follows continued shareholder frustration. PayPal’s stock is down roughly 80% from five years ago, and the company on Tuesday projected lower earnings for 2026, Fortune reported. In announcing the change, the board cited the pace of execution falling short of expectations—language that often precedes leadership resets focused on operational discipline and capital performance.
Miller’s appointment reflects a broader governance trend. According to Crist Kolder Associates’ 2025 Volatility Report, CFO-to-CEO promotions among Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies reached a decade high of 10.26% last year, up from 6.15% in 2015. All such promotions were internal, underscoring boards’ growing preference for leaders with deep institutional knowledge and financial credibility.
At PayPal, Miller’s remit had already expanded in 2025 to include the chief operating officer role, a combination increasingly used to test CFOs for broader enterprise leadership. Appointed CFO in 2023, she previously served as global CFO of EY and CFO of Cargill, and spent more than a decade at General Electric, including as CFO and CEO of GE Transportation.
Lores, who has led HP for more than six years and served on PayPal’s board since 2021, has experience driving complex transformations and disciplined execution, David W. Dorman, the newly appointed independent board chair at PayPal, said in a statement.
For CFOs watching, PayPal’s transition is another reminder that in periods of volatility, boards are often looking first to financial leadership, whether on an interim or permanent basis, to steady the enterprise and reset performance expectations.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com