eBay's Meg Whitman to co-chair McCain's campaign

Meg Whitman, President and Chief Executive Officer of eBay Inc., speaks at the Web. 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, California, October 18, 2007.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Meg Whitman, eBay Inc.'s outgoing chief executive officer, will co-chair the national presidential campaign of U.S. Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.

The organization said on Friday Whitman, 51, would play a lead role in the campaign's financing and policy development.

Since Whitman joined eBay in 1998, the 30-employee start-up has been transformed into a Fortune 500 company with nearly $8 billion in revenue.

This success made Whitman one of the most powerful women in business and earned her a ranking among Time Magazine's list of the world's most influential people.

Whitman announced in January that she would step down from the helm of eBay on March 31 and spend more time on philanthropy and politics.

She previously worked as a fund-raiser for McCain's rival, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who bowed out of the presidential race on February 7.

(Reporting by Amanda Beck, editing by Todd Eastham)