Jason Del Rey

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In Exec Shake-Up, Former PayPal Exec Sam Shrauger Takes on Expanded Role at Visa

Sam Shrauger, the former PayPal and Yahoo executive, has been named Visa’s new global head of digital for developed markets, following a recent executive shake-up at the company.

Shrauger was hired in December as Visa’s head of commercialization to oversee strategy for bringing Visa’s digital and mobile products to market. His new role gives him oversight of those products, which include the V.me digital wallet service and the PayWave NFC product, in addition to the strategy component.

Shrauger is a long-time PayPal veteran who had a brief stint at Yahoo under former CEO Scott Thompson.

Some of Shrauger’s new product duties were previously held by Bill Gajda, formerly head of mobile products. Gajda is now Visa’s global head of strategic partnerships — a role in which he will focus on alliances with mobile network operators and device makers, such as a recent NFC deal with Samsung.

Gajda’s boss, Jim McCarthy, has also been moved into new a role: From global head of products to global head of innovation and strategic partnerships.

Visa outlined the changes in a blog post today meant to correct and clarify reports from several mobile trade publications.

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The problem with the Billionaire Savior phase of the newspaper collapse has always been that billionaires don’t tend to like the kind of authority-questioning journalism that upsets the status quo.

— Ryan Chittum, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review about the promise of Pierre Omidyar’s new media venture with Glenn Greenwald