Former Amex Exec Gabriella Fitzgerald Joins Western Union

Global money movement firm Western Union appointed Gabriella Fitzgerald as president of the Americas region, effective immediately, the company said in a press release.

Fitzgerald joins the executive team and reports directly to Western Union CEO Hikmet Ersek. She is responsible for advancing the company’s product and channel expansion while also working to grow customer segments.

Fitzgerald joins Western Union after working with American Express for almost 20 years. At Amex, she was most recently executive vice president and general manager of global commercial services, and was responsible for leading the U.S. corporate and B2B payments business for the company’s biggest global enterprise clients.

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Among Fitzgerald’s accomplishments at Amex was boosting product value propositions and service delivery, which in turn expanded international growth and profitability. She was also responsible in part for positioning Amex as a payments authority.

“Gabriella has built her career and her reputation with bold, innovative thinking about digital-driven growth and customer experience optimization while leading diverse, global teams,” said Ersek. He added that her “experience, expertise and passion” will be welcomed at Western Union’s Americas division.

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Fitzgerald joins Western Union at a time when the company is targeting heightened penetration of the international cross-border consumer payments market. Using a Western Union-branded ecosystem strategy, the company plans to increase its market via new services.

“Coming on board such an iconic brand at a time when the company is expanding its business across the payments sector to serve multiple segments is an exciting prospect, and I look forward to being part of the team driving this growth forward,” Fitzgerald said.

Western Union provides cross-border payment flows and bridges more than 200 countries and territories and over 130 currencies. It is among the world’s widest-reaching networks and has more than 500,000 retail locations.