Charlie Scharf to Resign as CEO effective December 1; Alfred F.
Kelly, Jr. Named CEO
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) today announced that Charlie Scharf is resigning as
chief executive officer effective December 1, 2016, and the board of
directors has unanimously voted to appoint Alfred F. Kelly, Jr. as CEO.
Mr. Kelly, a current Visa board member, is the president and chief
executive officer of Intersection Co. and the former president of
American Express Co.
Mr. Scharf informed the board of directors that he decided to resign his
position as CEO and board member because he could no longer spend the
time in San Francisco necessary to do the job effectively. The board of
directors did a rigorous review of a diverse set of internal and
external candidates and is extremely gratified that Mr. Kelly has
accepted the position. Mr. Kelly will join the company on October 31,
2016 as CEO designate. As part of the transition, Mr. Scharf will serve
as an advisor to Mr. Kelly beginning December 1, 2016 for several months.
“Charlie has been a visionary CEO, highly successful by any set of
metrics. He has helped transform Visa, the leading global payments
technology company, into a technology-driven digital commerce company
and has led a strategy that will benefit this company for years to
come,” said Robert W. Matschullat, the company’s independent chairman.
“The board of directors is extremely grateful for Charlie’s leadership
and wishes to thank him for his outstanding four-year tenure, which saw
total shareholder return increase by more than 130%, outperforming both
the overall stock market and our peer group.”
“We are thrilled to have found someone with Al’s expertise and knowledge
to take Visa to even greater heights. Al is a veteran payments industry
executive who knows Visa well, having served as a board member for the
past two-and-a-half years,” said Mr. Matschullat. “The board unanimously
agrees that Al is the right leader for the company, and we expect a
seamless transition given Al’s deep knowledge of the industry,
demonstrated leadership capabilities, and his strong relationships with
the talented management team currently in place.”
In his 23 years at American Express, Mr. Kelly held a variety of
leadership positions. In addition to being president of American
Express, he was head of the Global Consumer and Consumer Card Services
groups. He currently serves on the board of directors of MetLife Inc.
Mr. Scharf commented: “I love working and running this great global
company and I am sad to have reached the conclusion that I should step
down, but running a San Francisco based company just doesn’t work for me
personally right now and wouldn’t be fair to Visa. It has been an
incredible privilege and honor to work with my many colleagues who have
contributed so significantly to our success and transformation, and have
strengthened our position as the leading global payments provider. I
feel confident that the clarity of our strategic goals and our decisive
actions will ensure that we continue to thrive in this quickly evolving
industry.”
“Visa is lucky to have Al Kelly as the next CEO. I and our senior
management team have had the opportunity to work closely with Al – and
those relationships, along with his depth and breadth of payment
knowledge – will enable him to step in quickly without missing a beat.
I, of course, will do everything I can to help make the transition as
easy as possible for everyone. Al is the right person to lead Visa to
continued success.”
Under Mr. Scharf’s leadership, Visa has strengthened its position in
global electronic payments and has been a leader in bringing innovation
to the industry. Visa has transformed its technology platform by opening
access to its network and capabilities through the Visa Developer
Center, partnered with the world’s leading technology companies to drive
new payment experiences, introduced new technologies to improve payment
system security, and built a world class management team.
In addition, the company successfully completed the acquisition of Visa
Europe in June 2016, and delivered strong financial results, with
operating income climbing to $9.1 billion in FY 2015. Visa’s stock was
added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 2013.
Mr. Kelly said: “I am extremely excited and honored to take on this role
and build on Charlie’s work and that of all of the employees at Visa.
Visa is incredibly well positioned for continued success, and I look
forward to joining this preeminent global organization. I have had the
pleasure of getting to know many of the Visa executives during my time
on the board, and they are a talented group of business leaders who have
been relentlessly focused on driving Visa’s global strategy. I look
forward to working with them, including Ryan McInerney, Visa’s
President, in serving our clients. Charlie has positioned Visa for great
success, and I thank him for his leadership.”
The succession will be effective December 1, 2016, when Mr. Scharf will
step down and Mr. Kelly will assume the CEO position.
Conference Call/Webcast Details
Messrs. Matschullat, Scharf and Kelly will host an investor call and
webcast today at 5:00 p.m. Eastern time (2:00 p.m. Pacific time) to
discuss the announcement.
All interested parties are invited to listen to the live webcast at http://investor.visa.com.
A replay of the webcast will be available on Visa’s Investor Relations
website for 30 days.
Al Kelly Biography
Over the course of his career, Mr. Kelly has worked in industry-leading
companies within the financial services, travel and leisure, and
consumer products industries. Before becoming CEO of Intersection, he
was a managing advisor at TowerBrook Capital Partners LP. He led
numerous groups at American Express Co. between 1987 and 2010, including
the Global Consumer Group, the Consumer Card Services Group, OPEN from
American Express, Consumer Travel, Global Travelers Cheques and Prepaid
Services, US Customer Service, and Global Risk Management and
Interactive Services. Mr. Kelly joined the board of Visa in 2014 as an
independent director and is also presently a director of MetLife Inc. He
was the chairman, president and CEO of the 2014 NY/NJ Super Bowl Host
Committee and is active in numerous philanthropic endeavors, including
as a trustee of the New York Presbyterian Hospital and of Boston
College. Mr. Kelly also worked at the White House from 1985-1987 as
manager of information systems and at PepsiCo from 1981 to 1985 in
strategic planning. He received a bachelor's degree as well as an MBA
from Iona College.
About Visa Inc.
Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is a global payments technology company that
connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions, and governments
in more than 200 countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable
electronic payments. We operate one of the world’s most advanced
processing networks — VisaNet — that is capable of handling more than
65,000 transaction messages a second, with fraud protection for
consumers and assured payment for merchants. Visa is not a bank and does
not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers.
Visa’s innovations, however, enable its financial institution customers
to offer consumers more choices: pay now with debit, pay ahead with
prepaid or pay later with credit products. For more information, visit usa.visa.com/about-visa,
visacorporate.tumblr.com
and @VisaNews.
Forward-Looking Statements:
This Press Release contains forward-looking statements within the
meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Forward-looking statements generally are identified by words such as
"estimates," "expectation," “outlook”, "may," "projects," "could,"
"should," "will," "will continue" and other similar expressions.
Examples of forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to,
statements we make about our revenue, client incentives, operating
margin, tax rate, earnings per share, free cash flow, and the growth of
those items.
By their nature, forward-looking statements: (i) speak only as of the
date they are made; (ii) are not statements of historical fact or
guarantees of future performance; and (iii) are subject to risks,
uncertainties, assumptions or changes in circumstances that are
difficult to predict or quantify. Therefore, actual results could differ
materially and adversely from our forward-looking statements due to a
variety of factors, including the following:
-
the impact of laws, regulations and marketplace barriers, including:
-
increased regulation of fees, transaction routing, payment card
practices or other aspects of the payments industry in the U.S.,
including new or revised regulations issued under the Dodd-Frank
Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act;
-
increased regulation in Europe and other jurisdictions outside of
the U.S.;
-
increased government support of national payment networks outside
the U.S.; and
-
increased regulation of consumer privacy, data use and security;
-
developments in litigation and government enforcement, including those
affecting interchange reimbursement fees, antitrust and tax;
-
new lawsuits, investigations or proceedings, or changes to our
potential exposure in connection with pending lawsuits, investigations
or proceedings;
-
economic factors, such as:
-
uncertainty surrounding the Brexit, including the spillover to
economic fragility in the Eurozone, the U.S. and in other advanced
and emerging markets;
-
general economic, political and social conditions in mature and
emerging markets globally;
-
general stock market fluctuations which may impact consumer
spending;
-
material changes in cross-border activity, foreign exchange
controls and fluctuations in currency exchange rates; and
-
material changes in our financial institution clients' performance
compared to our estimates;
-
industry developments, such as competitive pressure, rapid
technological developments and disintermediation from our payments
network;
-
system developments, such as:
-
disruption of our transaction processing systems or the inability
to process transactions efficiently;
-
account data breaches or increased fraudulent or other illegal
activities involving Visa-branded cards or payment products; and
-
failure to maintain systems interoperability with Visa Europe;
-
the loss of organizational effectiveness or key employees;
-
the failure to integrate acquisitions successfully, achieve the
anticipated benefits of the acquisitions, or effectively develop new
products and businesses;
-
natural disasters, terrorist attacks, military or political conflicts,
and public health emergencies; and
-
various other factors, including those more fully described in our
filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including
our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 30, 2015,
and our subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K.
You should not place undue reliance on such statements. Except as
required by law, we do not intend to update or revise any
forward–looking statements as a result of new information, future
developments or otherwise.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161017006452/en/
Source: Visa Inc.