SAN JOSE, CA — PayPal has hired Visa's Paul Cohen as VP of global corporate communications as the company prepares to split off from eBay later this year. 

Cohen spent more than a decade at Visa, most recently as SVP where he managed all aspects of communications throughout North America, in addition to handling global public affairs, crisis and issues work.  

In 2013, Visa consolidated marketing and communications under Antonio Lucio, who last month joined HP as head of marketing and comms. In addition to CCO Doug Michelman (now at Sprint), Ryan Donovan (now with his own consultancy) and Will Valentine (now at Pandora) were among those in communications who parted ways with the company after the move.   

At PayPal, Cohen reports into VP of global brand and communications Christina Smedley and leads corporate comms and PR activities including reputation management and stakeholder engagement.  

"We’re so thrilled to have Paul join my team to lead corporate communications as PayPal gets closer to becoming an independent, publicly traded company," Smedley said. 

In EMEA, PayPal brought on H+K's Amanda Groty as senior comms director in that region. The company also put forth an international PR agency review.