HiBid Names Ross Paul, Former CTO of Phillips and 1stDibs, as Chief Technology Officer

Paul brings more than 20 years of experience in the auction and e-commerce industries, most recently as CTO of Phillips and previously as CTO of 1stDibs (Nasdaq: DIBS), which he scaled from Series A through IPO.

LINCOLN, Neb. and CHICAGO, July 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- HiBid, one of the largest online auction platforms in North America with over $2 billion in annual GMV, today named Ross Paul as Chief Technology Officer. HiBid combines the HiBid.com online auction marketplace with AuctionFlex, its seller system of record. Paul will lead HiBid's engineering organization and the continued modernization of its platform.

At Phillips, Paul rebuilt the auction house's technology organization and core infrastructure, including a new bidding engine and mobile bidding app. At 1stDibs, he joined as CTO at Series A and led engineering through the company's IPO. Earlier in his career, Paul served as Vice President of Engineering at MLB Advanced Media, where he built real-time and live-streaming products for Major League Baseball, after beginning his career as a developer in Lockheed Martin's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He holds two U.S. patents in real-time classification and live data synchronization, and an A.B. with honors in Computational Neuroscience from Cornell University.

"Ross has built technology for some of the most respected names in the auction and marketplace world, and he understands what it takes to scale a platform without losing sight of the people who depend on it every day," said Pat McCusker, Chief Executive Officer of HiBid. "Bringing him on as CTO is a meaningful investment in the platform our thousands of sellers rely on."

"Nearly a million times a day, someone comes to HiBid.com to buy or sell something that matters to them. Good marketplace technology mostly gets out of their way, and that's the part I care about building," said Paul. "The scale is already here. Now the team and I get to build technology worthy of the people using it."

About HiBid

Founded in 2000, HiBid is one of the largest online auction platforms in North America, transacting over $2 billion in annual GMV across nearly 300 million annual sessions. The HiBid.com marketplace supports timed online, webcast, and absentee bidding formats, and pairs with AuctionFlex, the industry-leading auction management tool which acts as a system of record for cataloging, clerking, settlement, and reporting. HiBid is headquartered in Lincoln, Neb., and Chicago, Ill., and is backed by growth-oriented software investors Primus Capital and ParkerGale.

SOURCE HiBid