Visa CEO To Exit

Visa’s top management ranks shuffled Monday (Oct. 17) as the payments company said CEO Charles Scharf would resign late this year and will be replaced by Alfred Kelly, Jr., who currently sits on the company’s board of directors and who served formerly as president of American Express.

The shift will take place on Dec. 1 when Scharf’s resignation becomes effective.

In a conference call with analysts Monday afternoon, Kelly, who has sat on Visa’s board since Jan. 2014, said that he would not “come in here expecting to make a lot of big changes” and that many of Visa’s current initiatives, including digital payments and its recent integration efforts with Visa Europe, would remain intact.

Scharf, for his part, stated that he was stepping down purely for personal and family reasons, noting a desire to maintain proximity to family on the East Coast and that he could no longer maintain a schedule that kept him in San Francisco, where the company is headquartered. Kelly said on the same call that he would be spending time in San Francisco and also Europe.

Management noted on the call that Kelly will effectively assume his role on Oct. 31 (as CEO designate) and that Scharf would act as an advisor until the official handoff.

Also on the call, Robert W. Matschullat, Visa’s chairman, said that Scharf had helped shepherd Visa into a “technology-driven digital commerce company and has led a strategy that will benefit this company for years to come.”

Reuters noted Monday night that Kelly comes to helm the firm at a time when there are a few challenges afoot. Visa, as the newswire noted, has been in a legal battle with retail giant Walmart focused on PINs used during purchases. And, of course, there is the additional challenge of the settlement having been thrown out in the case where Visa and Mastercard had been accused of fixing fees levied on retailers.