eBay Loses Head of Innovation & Research Product Management
Gadi Mikles, eBay's Head of Innovation and Research Product Management, announced he's leaving the company in a LinkedIn post earlier this week.
A bit afraid, a bit sad, but mostly happy, excited and determined to go and follow my dream😊:
During my ebay journey I have learned so much from so many great people in ebay and from our partners, startups, organizations and many more. I am so grateful for that.
I can't really summarize my learnings in a short way, but still this is a great moment to thank to my amazing teams, colleagues, managers and partners, and to highlight my top 3 learnings about innovation, which are the closest to my heart and focused on the people 😊
Innovation is first of all a matter of people. If you are able to create a work atmosphere of happiness, collaboration, low ego and a true appreciation (and even love!) between the different team members –there would be endless opportunities to create innovation and value. I had the pleasure to work with many people who became close friends of mine till these days, and I am so happy that for significant periods of time, we had the opportunity to create and work in such environment and ejoy every moment of it.
The tech world is crazy and super dynamic. Long terms planning processes or endless investments in roadmaps can lead in many cases to high level of frustration to you and your teams. We have no way to predict the future (hello covid), and while we don’t want to work in a complete chaos, we still need to remember that plans are only plans. Agility and ability to response to market changes and business demands is critical. Considering the current tech challenges in the business environment, only tech companies that would adjust their plans and response super-fast to the current market changes would be able to recover fast and driving growth.
You need to get excited. Not in a reality TV shows way, but seriously – I learned how important and critical it is to get excited from the work you are doing. Create a product, process, project that really changes something in your heart. So you make an impact, create value, and even.. yeah even makes you feel proud! That would make us work better and be better, and deliver an innovation or a change in much more efficient way. So managers and employees should ask themselves how we build that spark in the eyes, what do we do if we or our teams do not have it? How can we better listen, so we know how to build it? A true basic need that we need to check bravely and make sure we correct the stuff that preventing us from reaching to this spark.
I have so many thoughts, learnings and conclusions, but I will stop here 😊
Goodbye ebay, I will keep following and wish for the company success with all my heart, keep on rocking ebay team! ❤
Gadi had been part of eBay's Israel research and development operations in various roles since 2013.
As Head of Innovation and Research Product Management he was a member of the Israel Site Leadership Team, leading the innovation team strategy and execution, identifying strategic opportunities for collaborations and M&As and focusing on AI based solutions for personalization experiences in large scales for eBay global.
He did not disclose where he'll be going next or if eBay has named a replacement.
