Enrique Lores

Enrique Lores is a Spanish-Born technology executive who became Chief Executive Officer of PayPal on 1 March 2026. He was previously CEO of HP Inc from 2019 to 2026, leading the personal computing and printing giant through the post-pandemic PC demand surge and subsequent correction. A long-serving HP executive, Lores joined HP in 1989 and rose through engineering and sales roles before becoming CEO. His tenure at HP included navigating significant printer supply chain disruptions and a failed attempt to merge with Xerox.

Lores brings a manufacturing and hardware background unusual for a fintech CEO. His appointment at PayPal, whose core product is a digital payments platform, signals a focus on operational efficiency and cost discipline rather than product innovation. He succeeded Alex Chriss, who had taken the CEO role in 2023 following Dan Schulman's retirement.

At HP Inc, Lores was known for restructuring programmes that reduced headcount as the PC market normalised after pandemic-era demand spikes, giving him extensive experience managing workforce reductions at scale — experience directly relevant to his first major action at PayPal.

Within weeks of becoming PayPal CEO, Lores oversaw the phased reduction of approximately 4,760 jobs structured in tranches to stay below WARN Act notification thresholds. The move positioned AI-driven efficiency — particularly in fraud detection and customer service automation — as the rationale, while the compliance strategy attracted scrutiny from labour lawyers who characterised the threshold-skirting as WARN Act evasion by design.

Lores's early tenure at PayPal thus became a test case in how incoming executives use AI restructuring mandates to remake inherited organisations, and how the legal architecture around mass layoffs is responding.