U.S. Bancorp might be well-recognized for its payments innovation strategy, but Dominic Venturo's title still raises a few eyebrows.

"I want to be a chief innovation officer," one audience member told another as Venturo, who holds that title for U.S. Bancorp's retail payments solutions division, took the stage at for the final keynote address at SourceMedia Inc.'s annual ATM, Debit & Prepaid Forum Tuesday morning.

Venturo's topic was, not surprisingly, the innovation that he called "a top priority" at U.S. Bancorp -- "and I know that because it's right there on our annual report," he said. 

He spent most of the speech describing his company's broad view when it comes to product development: "We follow trends, it's not enough to focus on payments" to anticipate products of the future, he said. "We absolutely keep ideas for a long time."

But Venturo also took the opportunity to joke about other jobs that come with unusual business cards. While at a conference last year, he said, he met "a social anthropologist for a large mobile company -- and yep, they actually have people with that title."