Who's News

In a move to grow card issuing services to financial institutions, Richard T. Robida has been named evp of First Data Corp.'s Card Services Group. Hired away from Atlanta-based Speer & Associates, where he was president, Robida will apply his financial service consulting background to First Data customers, offering them a range of issuing services, from customer relationship building to decisioning models. ... Visa USA has found its new evp of systems development and customer service in Scott Thompson, who traded in his CIO post at Barclays Global Investors to head up VisaNet Services Group. ... Reflecting a new strategic direction for First Virtual Holdings, which has transitioned from being an off-line payments player in electronic commerce to a communications and marketing systems provider for Internet commerce, the company has promoted the architect of this transition, Keith S. Kendrick, to president from vp of marketing. Finally, on-line investment banking and brokerage firm Wit Capital Corp. is beefing up its executive team to gain a more established position in the market. In so doing, it has hired Bill Feeley, former managing director of equity capital markets at BT Securities, as director of capital markets and Ken Lenskold, former compliance officer in Citicorp Investment Services, as compliance officer.