Exclusive: Square Snags PayPal VP Alyssa Cutright for International Expansion

March 20, 2012 at 12:26 pm PT

A Square spokesperson has confirmed to All Things D that the payments company has hired Alyssa Cutright, a 12-year veteran of PayPal, to head up its international expansion.

Most recently, Cutright was PayPal's VP of products for North America, but started off as one of the company's members of the core payments team that headed up localization efforts for PayPal. While at PayPal, she also led the company's global risk management efforts for awhile.

Cutright, who will join Square next week, will have the title of VP of International.

So far, Square only operates in the U.S., by enabling small merchants to accept credit-card payments using mobile phones and tablets. It plans to roll out internationally this year, but has yet to disclose what markets it will enter in first.

Last week, PayPal launched a direct competitor to Square's service called Here, which allows merchants to accept payments using a small dongle plugged into a smartphone - it is nearly an identical service to the one Square offers.

In the first 24 hours of availability, PayPal's David Marcus said today in a Tweet that the company was signing up more than 1,000 businesses per hour for Here.

In a statement, a PayPal spokesperson confirmed Cutright's departure and said the timing had nothing to do with PayPal's recent launch of PayPal Here.

"Although Alyssa held a product role with PayPal, she was not involved in the creation or launch of PayPal Here.  PayPal Here was created by a central global product team led by David Marcus and Hill Ferguson."

Over the past year, PayPal has lost a number of high profile executives to other companies. The most high-profile was the loss of its President Scott Thompson to Yahoo, where he now serves as CEO. Other departures have included Stephanie Tilenius and Osama Bedier to Google.