XING CEO quits, head of eBay Germany announced as successor

The usual "focusing on new challenges" line punted out as former eBay Germany head fills his shoes at business focused social network.

Thanks to Mike Butcher (http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/11/24/xing-ceo-quits-replaced-by-former-ebay-drone/trackback/) some interesting news from XING this morning.

Co-founder and CEO Lars Hinrichs is set to quit to make way for Dr Stefan Gross-Selbeck, the former head of eBay Germany, who will take up the role in January. Hinrichs will stay involved in the businesses, sitting on the supervisory board to enable him to continue his 5 years of service.

Given consistently great results from XING -- although it never seems enough for the German company to ever get mentioned alongside LinkedIn in the many more column inches its American rival manages -- it's odd that he has chosen to move aside at this time. The almost mandatory "pursuing other interests" excuse featured in Hinrich's blog today (http://blog.xing.com/2008/11/a-new-chapter-in-the-company-history/), although I would suggest he is leaving before he's finished the job: XING holds a strong position in Germany, Spain and Turkey (the second two thanks to acquisitions) but XING is yet to fully establish itself in other parts of Europe, Asia or the US to offer some much needed competition to LinkedIn.

I'll watch with interest any attempts to address these issues from the incoming CEO early next year.

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http;//www.wecando.biz