American Express President Moves his Own Cheese

American Express President Moves his Own Cheese

by Kasey Hendrix

NEW YORK - American Express Co. said Monday its president, Alfred F. Kelly Jr., will step down early next year. Kelly, 51, wants to run a company as a chief executive, a position that is unlikely to come open anytime soon at American Express as chairman and CEO Kenneth Chenault, 58, is entrenched in the job. Chenault said Kelly will continue to lead the card issuer's transition to a bank holding company until his departure. He has been president and head of the global consumer group since 2007. Kelly is just the latest banking executive to leave his position as top-level management has been increasingly turning over in the financial services sector. Last week, Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis said he will retire by the end of the year. Bill Winters left his role as co-CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s investment bank as well. With Kelly leaving, American Express' global consumer, small business and network businesses will report to Edward Gilligan, who is a vice chairman at the company and is 50 years old. Separately, American Express also said it created a global services division that will cover customer service, technologies, operations, business processing and information management. Stephen Squeri, 50, has been named the group's president. He previously was in charge of technologies and corporate development.

The bank also created a new enterprise growth division that is aimed at generate incremental fee revenue and oversee American Express' entry into new payment areas. American Express is currently search outside the bank for an executive to run the unit.

 This story directly relates to “Who Moved My Cheese,” because the current president of American Express literally had to make a decision to stay comfortable in his current situation, or to move on to something more. He was resembled Sniff and Scurry because he was looking for something before he had to. He was ready to move on and had other prospects before his job was in jeopardy. Just like many other executives moving from other major companies in the U.S., he was leaving instead of staying landlocked in a position. One of the lessons in the story was to not simply be comfortable but to always be looking ahead and to always be ready for change. He is just one story of many who have jumped ahead of circumstances in the shaky statuses of jobs currently in the nation. 

Story taken from the Associated Press via MSNBCnews.com

Picture retrieved from American Express.com