Former Bank of America small-business exec takes job at PayPal

Bank of America’s former small-business products head has taken a job with PayPal, joining other bankers who have gone to work for the company.

Lynn Smith Kuttruff, who oversaw the Charlotte-based Bank of America unit until she retired in 2012, starts her new job today. She will be based in Baltimore, where she will be PayPal’s senior director of global core payments.

According to PayPal, Kuttruff’s role will be to help manage the online payment service company’s relationships with third-party payment networks, processors and others.

She’s not the first Bank of America executive to accept a job with San Jose, Calif.-based PayPal. Darrell Esch, a debit cards executive for the bank until 2010, went to work for PayPal that year.

Kuttruff said other bankers in recent years have gone on to take jobs with PayPal, where they can use skills acquired from years of working in financial services.

“I think there’s lots of them,” she said. “I think that we all have an opportunity as we learn things in one industry to parlay that into something else.”

Kuttruff moved to Charlotte from Delaware in 2006, the year Bank of America bought her then-employer, MBNA Corp.

She’s held various positions at Bank of America during her nearly seven years with the company. In her most recent role, she was responsible for growing the bank’s products for small businesses, including loans and debit and credit cards.

Kuttruff, who moved from Charlotte to Delaware this past summer, said she will miss Charlotte.

“I think the thing I liked about Charlotte is it was a great mix of people,” she said. “We miss our home there. It’s a great city.”