Mary Lou Song

Mary Lou Song is a Korean-American entrepreneur and was eBay's third employee. She joined the company, formerly AuctionWeb, in 1996 after being recruited by its founder Pierre Omidyar and Jeffrey Skoll.^[1]

Song graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism with a B.S. in Journalism and from Stanford University with a M.A. in Media Studies.^[2]

In his book "The Perfect Store: Inside eBay," Adam Cohen recounts the conversation between Song and Skoll, who she met at a Stanford Business School party. At the time, Song was working for a public relations firm, but agreed to have lunch with Skoll and Omidyar.^[3] Song agreed to come on-board and was tasked with "bringing mainstream media attention" to the site.^[4] Additionally, she managed the company's public relations and community and product management teams.^[5] During the early days at eBay, Song is also credited with building the platform's community, tools and strategy to grow from 15,000 members to 20 million.^[6]

Song joined Friendster, a social networking company, after a six year stint at eBay. She was brought on as the Director of Community Development with the responsibility of managing its user base.^[7][8]

Labeled as a story sharing platform, Tokoni was founded in 2007 by Song and her husband, Alex Kazim. The company closed its doors in 2010.^[9]