Encouraging words from new Visa U.S.A. CEO, John Coghlan
From BusinessWeek Online: -Schwab exec John Coghlan is also a former merchant, and he says that experience will color his tenure at the payment-card giant.
When former Visa USA CEO Carl Pascarella announced plans to retire last year, he left some big shoes to fill -- and some thorny legal problems to solve. In 2002, Visa and MasterCard paid $2 billion to settle a lawsuit filed by Wal-Mart (WMT ) and other merchants over debit-card fees. Last month, another group of merchants sued the card companies over credit-card fees.
But rather than hire a lawyer as its next CEO, Visa took the peacemaker approach and named a former merchant. On July 11, the card association announced that its new CEO is John Coghlan, who, prior to spending 17 years as an executive at Charles Schwab (SCH ), ran a small business called San Francisco Grocery Express Ltd. The 54-year-old San Francisco native vows to pay special attention to merchants' needs during his tenure.
Click here to read the article (BusinessWeek Online, July 12, 2005)
