eBay announced that Chief Operating Officer Maynard Webb plans to retire from the company in August 2006. Webb is responsible for corporate operations, including the legal, human resources, and corporate technology functions. Mike Jacobson, General Counsel, and Beth Axelrod, Senior Vice President of Human Resources, will report directly to eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

In 1999, Webb joined eBay as President, eBay Technologies, and in June 2002, he was named COO of eBay Inc. Prior to joining eBay, Webb was senior vice president and CIO at Gateway, Inc. He also worked as CIO at Bay Networks and managed technology operations at Quantum, Thomas Conrad, Figgie International, and IBM.

eBay has no plans to fill Webb's role. Corporate technology will be jointly managed by Matt Carey, Chief Technology Officer, eBay Marketplaces, and Scott Thompson, Chief Technology Officer, PayPal.

Since last Fall, eBay has seen several top-level executives transition roles or step down. Among them:

Rajiv Dutta, eBay's CFO (now President of Skype worldwide, an eBay subsidiary);

Marty Abbott, eBay's Senior Vice President of Technology (resigned, now at Quigo);

Matt Bannick, President of eBay International (who will be transitioning out of that role later this year in order to spearhead eBay's initiatives in corporate philanthropy)

Alex Kazim, eBay's Senior Vice President of New Ventures (now heading several new business areas at Skype);

Henry Gomez, head of eBay Corporate Communications (now head of Skype North America);

Lynn Reedy, CTO of eBay Marketplaces Product & Technology (resigned).

CEO Meg Whitman had herself considered a position at Disney in March of last year.