Michael van Swaaij
Skype's fourth president, Michael van Swaaij has been living in Switzerland but it's a safe bet he's taking a London flat as we speak. [craigslist London, Michael.]
Michael van Swaaij's (pronounced "van-sway") slightly dated official biography:
After starting out in the microelectronics industry Dutch born Michael van Swaaij joined Bertelsmann AG, Europe’s largest media company, in 1994 as Director New Technologies advising on investment opportunities in the field of new media. He joined one such investment, the Bertelsmann - America Online joint-venture in Europe in 1995, as one of the first employees and eventually became Regional Managing Director responsible for the AOL and CompuServe businesses in several European countries.
He joined eBay in July 1999 to start and head up eBay’s European operations and expansion through green-field start-ups as well as acquisitions. eBay Europe is now the largest ecommerce business in Europe operating in 9 countries with over 10 Billion Euros per year in trade.
Michael is currently the Chief Strategy Officer for eBay Inc, reporting to its CEO Meg Whitman, and is responsible for defining the strategic direction for the eBay Inc group of companies (eBay, PayPal, Skype). Michael holds a master degree from the Technical University of Twente, a PhD from the Catholic University in Leuven and a MBA from INSEAD.
All the best from Skype Journal, Michael.
More:
- U.S. Patent No. 6064819: Control flow and memory management optimization.
- LinkedIn profile. Facebook profile.

