Building the Bid-ness at eBay

I am a business analyst in the international insights and analytics department at the online auction site eBay (EBAY ), which is based in San Jose, Calif. Since its founding in 1995, eBay has grown quickly. An estimated 147 million people around the globe traded $10.6 billion worth of goods in the first quarter of 2005.

In my current position, I'm responsible for analyzing cross-border trade activity and supporting and facilitating various marketing initiatives. For instance, I'll produce reports for our team to analyze our domestic export and import volume. I'll also provide and update content on our global trade hub page. I am one of five team members, and we all report to the director of our business unit.

Having lived and worked in Silicon Valley for a number of years, I recognized early on that the most successful business executives have a combination of both technical and business acumen. I decided to attend Boston University School of Management's MS-MBA curriculum because it combined both business and information technology.

My career at eBay began as a summer intern for the international department, where I assisted in the development of the Hong Kong and Singapore sites, helping define each site's category structure and modeling the product and loss forecasts. As an intern, it was exciting to have played such a key role in the development and launch of those sites, and it is incredibly rewarding now to see those markets growing.

Here's a snapshot of a typical day in my current position:

7:15 a.m. -- After performing diaper changing duties for my 10-month-old son, Connor, I head to the office.

7:45 a.m. -- Reply to e-mails, then hit the break room for caffeine and fuel.

9:00 a.m. -- Meetings usually start and, depending on the day, may last well into the afternoon. These meetings are usually with our counterparts on our product team to discuss recently launched products, such as our international shipping calculator, which helps users calculate shipping costs to overseas buyers, as well as to brainstorm about future products.

Our intent is to take the feedback that we've received from our community of users and to build or enhance products that meet their specific needs.

11:30 a.m. -- Try and catch up on the e-mails I missed while in meetings.

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