Accelerating American Express’ International Momentum

The following memo from Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Stephen J. Squeri was shared today with all American Express colleagues:

Accelerating our momentum across our international businesses is a critically important objective as we continue to work toward achieving our ambitious Growth Plan aspirations for long-term, sustainable growth.

We have made significant progress since implementing our "Winning Country-by-Country" strategy in 2018, including unifying scorecards, increasing collaboration across businesses, and sharing management responsibilities at the country level. This strategy has served us well, enabling us to grow our market share and increase merchant coverage in the regions where we operate. Since then, the international landscape has continued to change rapidly and increase in complexity. Local regulations and laws, economic conditions, market opportunities, and the size and make-up of our business vary widely by country.

To fully capitalize on the opportunities we see and drive sustainable, compliant growth across the world, we are launching a major transformation of our International issuing operating model to increase our speed, agility, scale, and effectiveness.

With these objectives in mind, we are bringing together our International Consumer and Small & Medium Size Enterprises (SME) issuing activities, as well as our Commercial Large Market sales and account development teams outside of the United States, into a new International Card Services organization (ICS), headed by Rafa Marquez. Effective immediately, Rafa is being promoted to President, ICS, and he will join the company's Executive Committee on July 1. Rafa will continue to report to Doug Buckminster in his role as Vice Chairman of the company, leveraging Doug's vast experience in leading both our consumer and SME businesses outside the United States over the course of his 35 years with the company.

Rafa is one of our most seasoned and successful leaders. Having spent his entire 23-year career with American Express in International where he has been responsible for our business at both regional and country levels, he is perfectly suited to lead our issuing businesses outside the U.S. to the next level of growth. Throughout his tenure, Rafa has led his teams with integrity, transparency, and a passion to win, always remaining true to our values and doing things the right way. His leadership in guiding our International team through the pandemic has been truly exceptional. Over the past two years, he has worked with leaders around the world to enhance our value propositions and accelerate customer acquisitions, leading to the strong recovery in our International Consumer business, while keeping our colleagues' wellbeing top of mind at all times.

The new ICS organization is a natural progression of our Winning Country-by-Country approach. It will build on the increased collaboration we've established and help accelerate our growth by creating and leveraging scale across our international Consumer, SME, and Merchant teams to unlock the power of our collective intellectual capital.

The new structure will streamline decision making and empower country leadership teams to adjudicate budgets and make investment trade-offs at the country level, rather than by line of business, enabling faster implementation of local priorities. It will also establish closer partnerships between our consumer and SME businesses in local markets, and it will streamline product and digital/tech development processes by creating dedicated technology and digital budgets and plans for International. Importantly, legal entities will have more control over compliance and operational excellence issues to reflect country-specific regulatory requirements.

To realize these benefits, we'll be making the following core changes:

• Country Managers will be responsible for all Consumer and SME issuing activities in their markets, as well as Large Market sales and account development. With this change, country-level Consumer, SME, and Large Market teams will report directly to the Country Managers.

• Teams in Global Commercial Services and the Global Consumer Services Group who have international responsibilities for product, marketing, and customer acquisition will report into an International Card Services Center of Excellence (COE).

• Operational Excellence (OE) teams with international responsibilities for issuing and acquiring will be integrated into one International OE Center of Excellence.

As a result, the following leaders will report directly to Rafa under the new structure:

• Rob McClean is being promoted to EVP and General Manager, International Card Services. Rob will have responsibility for Japan, Australia/New Zealand, India, Canada, and Mexico. With this change, Hiroyuki Yoshimoto (Japan), Corrina Davison (Australia/NZ), Lisa Kalhans (Canada) and Santiago Fernandez (Mexico) will report to Rob. As we transition to this new structure, Rob will also maintain responsibility for the Foreign Currency Solutions business, International B2B Strategy and Partnerships, and our India data localization program.

• Charlotte Duerden, who was recently promoted to EVP, and Chief Customer Officer, International, will lead the International Card Services COE, expanding her role to include responsibility for marketing, customer acquisition, and product for both our International consumer and SME businesses.

• Beverly Sawyers, SVP, International Operational Excellence, will head the International COE for Operational Excellence. OE teams with international responsibilities currently reporting into US based GCS and GMNS leaders will move to Beverly's organization.

• Hannah Lewis (Country Manager, UK), Caroline Gaye (Country Manager, France), Melissa Peretti (Country Manager, Italy, & Head of Germany, Austria Cluster, and EMEA JVs), and Frederik Sauter (SVP and Head of Growing Markets Cluster), will continue reporting to Rafa.

• Bernhard Brugger will continue to lead our Global Loyalty Coalition business, with no changes in his role.

In an effort to increase collaboration between our new International card issuing and merchant businesses, Global Merchant Services (GMS) marketing functions outside of the United States will report to a newly created head of International Merchant Marketing, reporting to Werner Decker, who continues in his role as EVP and General Manager of GMS International. With these additional responsibilities, Werner is being promoted and will continue to report to Raymond Joabar, Group President of Global Merchant and Network Services (GMNS).

The Global Client Group functions in GCS and GMNS, led by Gunther Bright and Tammy Weinbaum, will continue reporting to Anna Marrs, Group President of GCS and Credit & Fraud Risk, and Raymond Joabar, Group President of GMNS, respectively.

Our new international issuing model is an important evolution for us, and we will ensure we work through these complex changes together. Over the coming weeks and months, Rafa, the Country Managers, the COE heads, and leaders throughout the company will work together to determine the optimal structure on a country-by-country basis. In addition, leaders in our global functions, such as Technology, Enterprise Digital and Data Solutions, Finance, the Colleague Experience Group, and others will work through any changes they may need to make to effectively support our international issuing businesses going forward.

As a result, the new ICS structure will be effective starting July 1, with the exceptions of the new International OE COE under Beverly, and GMS International Marketing under Werner, which are effective immediately. While a number of people will likely have reporting line changes, most will continue in their current roles. As we work through this transition, we will be transparent and inclusive in our decision making. These changes are subject to the relevant processes and regulations, where required.

Business unit leaders will be communicating directly with their teams about the changes affecting them in the coming days and weeks. In making these changes, I want to stress that our intent is to maximize our opportunities, scale, and effectiveness to drive growth - not to reduce costs.

As we move forward in creating the new ICS organization, I am excited for the tremendous opportunities this new chapter represents for our company, our customers, and our colleagues.

Please join me in congratulating Rafa, Rob, and Werner on their promotions, and Rafa on joining the Executive Committee.

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