Mastercard Taps Amex Exec Vivian Zhou as Corporate Treasurer

Mastercard has named 16-year American Express veteran Vivian Zhou as its new corporate treasurer, effective Aug. 15, according to a company blog post Thursday (July 21).

Zhou will be taking over for Alfred Kibe, who will become the new chief financial officer for Mastercard in North America.

At American Express, Zhou was most recently the head of investor relations, though she held a number of leadership positions in global treasury throughout her time with the company. Some of her previous responsibilities were balance sheet strategy, planning and oversight of the treasury department’s global capital markets work, per the release.

“Vivian brings deep experience that is well-suited to supporting the execution of Mastercard’s strategy,” said Mastercard CFO Sachin Mehra. “We look forward to having her join the team and leveraging her experiences to drive our continued growth globally.”

Earlier this month, PYMNTS reported that Mastercard SpendingPulse data showed U.S. consumer retail spending in June was up 9.5% year over year. SpendingPulse looks at both online and in-store retail for all forms of payment, except for auto purchases.

See also: Mastercard SpendingPulse: US Retail Sales Up 9.5% YoY in June

This comes as prices have been increasing for months, with shoppers still helping themselves to more leisure-based spending as opposed to how things were throughout most of 2020.

SpendingPulse data also showed that excluding auto and gas, retail spending was up 6.1% year over year. Additionally, in-store spending was up 11.7% in June, and eCommerce sales were roughly double what they were in June of 2019.

“Sector by sector, we’re seeing a varied picture of how inflation is impacting essential vs discretionary consumer spending,” Steve Sadove, senior advisor for Mastercard, said in a press release at the time. “One notable highlight is that travel sectors such as airlines and lodging continue to show signs of strong demand.”