Dan Schulman

Early life

Schulman was born in Newark, New Jersey, but grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. He was captain of the tennis and lacrosse teams at Princeton High School, and went on to receive a bachelor's degree in Economics from Middlebury College, and an MBA from New York University.

His mother, S. Ruth Schulman, was associate dean of Rutgers' Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology (GSAPP) from 1974 to 1999. His father, the late Mel Schulman, was a chemical engineer.

Schulman once told the New York Times, "I was born with social activism in my DNA. My grandfather was a union organizer in the garment district in New York City. My mother took me to a civil rights demonstration in Washington in my stroller."

Business background

Schulman began his business career at AT&T, working more than 18 years there and becoming the youngest member of the company's senior executive team, the AT&T Operations Group. When Schulman left AT&T, he was president of the $22 billion core consumer long distance business.

He then became president and COO, and then CEO of Priceline.com. During his two years there, Priceline's annual revenues grew from a reported $20 million to about $1 billion.

In 2001, Schulman became the CEO of Virgin Mobile USA, Inc., and led the company from its national launch in 2002 to its becoming a public company in 2007, to its sale to Sprint Nextel in 2009. By the time Schulman left Virgin Mobile, it had become one of the nation's top wireless carriers, with more than 5 million customers and $1.3 billion in annual sales. Following the sale of Virgin Mobile to Sprint Nextel, Schulman served as President of Sprint's Prepaid group until he moved to American Express.

On 30 September 2014 it was announced that Schulman would become CEO of PayPal, which will continue as a separate legal entity, split from eBay in the second half of 2015.

Board service

Schulman became chairman of Symantec (SYMC-NASDAQ), in January 2013; and is a member of the Board of Directors of Flextronics (FLEX-NASDAQ). Schulman also serves on the advisory committee of Greycroft Partners, a private equity company focused on early-stage new media and technology companies.

Schulman is on the Board of Governors of Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey. He is on the board of Teach for America. He also serves on the board at Autism Speaks, an advocacy group dedicated to advancing research into causes and treatments for individuals on the autism spectrum.

Political stance

The Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act that mandates people in public facilities use bathrooms in accordance to their gender at birth was denounced by Dan Schulman. He stated that "The new law perpetuates discrimination and it violates the values and principles that are at the core of PayPal's mission and culture." Schulman also cosigned an opposition letter with about 120 executives from major corporations. In protest to the new law in North Carolina, Dan Schulman informed that the company is canceling its expansion to hire 400 people in the state.

Dan Schulman wrote in the PayPal statement that; "While we will seek an alternative location for our operations center, we remain committed to working with the LGBT community in North Carolina to overturn this discriminatory legislation, alongside all those who are committed to equality."

Awards

Schulman was named by Business Week as one of the top 20 people to watch in media, and was named the Ernst & Young 2009 Entrepreneur Of The Year. In 2009 he was named one of the top 25 most powerful people in the global wireless industry.

Personal

When he was CEO of Virgin Mobile, Schulman led a partnership with StandUp For Kids, a nonprofit that distributes survival kits and a hotline number to homeless youth. To get a truer sense of what homeless kids experience, Schulman once spent 24 hours on the streets of New York City, unshaven, wrapped in a blanket, and without money, a watch, or a cell phone. "There's a certain amount of deference paid to a C.E.O.," he later said. "No one paid attention to me on the street. I consider myself a good communicator and a good salesman. It took me five hours of begging to raise less than a dollar. My entire concept of what is important changed. Time is usually my most valuable commodity, but for that 24 hours I had too much time. Forget Starbucks and a $4 latte — I walked two miles to find a 25-cent cup of coffee."

Schulman has been a resident of Warren Township, New Jersey.