PayPal’s Power Move: Can HP Veteran Enrique Lores Fix the Checkout Giant?

Since taking over as Independent Board Chair in July 2024, Enrique Lores has become the most influential figure behind PayPal’s attempt to reclaim its former glory. While CEO Alex Chriss handles the day-to-day operations, it is Lores—the man who spent three decades at HP Inc.—who is tasked with overseeing the company’s high-stakes attempt to reverse a multi-year stagnation.

The challenge is immense. PayPal is no longer the undisputed king of the "buy" button. The company spent much of 2025 fighting for checkout dominance against Apple Pay and Google Wallet, both of which offer a friction-free experience that PayPal’s legacy tech has struggled to match. With its stock price still a fraction of its 2021 highs and transaction margins under heavy pressure, the appointment of a hardware veteran to lead a software-first board raised more than a few eyebrows in Silicon Valley.

From Hardware to High-Stakes Fintech

Lores’ resume is defined by his 2015 orchestration of the Hewlett-Packard split—one of the largest corporate de-mergers in history. This history of aggressive restructuring is exactly why he was brought into the PayPal fold. PayPal is currently bloated; it needs the same "surgical" approach Lores used at HP to separate the high-margin branded checkout business from its lower-margin unbranded processing units like Braintree.

However, skepticism remains. There is a fundamental cultural friction when a "hardware" veteran takes a lead role at a pure fintech firm. At HP, Lores dealt with physical supply chains and 3D printing. At PayPal, the product is trust and code. Critics argue that the slow-moving cycles of the PC industry are a poor match for a sector where a single iOS update from Apple can overnight erase a competitive advantage in mobile payments.

The Margin Crisis and the "Apple Problem"

The "so what" for investors isn't about Lores’ technical background; it’s about his ability to stop the bleeding. PayPal’s recent financial reports highlight a troubling trend: while total payment volume (TPV) remains high, the company’s take-rate and transaction margins have compressed significantly. This is largely because their growth is coming from unbranded processing, while their most profitable product—the PayPal button—is losing ground to the biometric ease of Apple Pay.

Lores must guide the board through a period where PayPal can no longer rely on its early-mover advantage. The company still boasts over 400 million active accounts, but that number has trended toward stagnation in recent quarters. The board’s current strategy, influenced heavily by Lores’ experience in "industrializing" digital processes, focuses on:

• Accelerating guest checkout speeds to match Apple Pay’s one-click experience.
• Monetizing Venmo more aggressively to offset the margin squeeze in the core business.
• Streamlining global operations across the 170 countries where the platform operates.

A Legacy at Risk

As of early 2026, the jury is still out on whether a leader from the "old guard" of tech can spark innovation in a "new guard" industry. Lores’ tenure as Board Chair is a gamble that operational discipline and massive corporate restructuring experience matter more than native fintech DNA.

To succeed, he and Alex Chriss must do more than just "streamline" the business—they have to convince a new generation of shoppers that PayPal is a necessary tool, not just a relic of the eBay era. For stockholders, the focus remains on whether Lores can translate his HP success into a roadmap that finally stabilizes PayPal’s volatile valuation.