Pamela Joseph
Vice Chairman, Payment Services, U.S. Bancorp
Pamela Joseph is the highest-ranking woman at U.S. Bancorp and leads business lines that consistently generate about a quarter of the company's revenue and more than a third of its fee income each year, despite headwinds like the Durbin Amendment's $300 million annual hit. Her team also is a primary source of innovation at the company. Initiatives in the works this year include refinements to a virtual-wallet strategy, real-time mobile reward redemptions and a biometrics pilot.
The division is on a dealmaking tear too: over the past five years, it has tallied more acquisitions (both for companies and card portfolios) and joint ventures (in Spain, Brazil and Mexico, all for merchant services) than any other area of the company. Its 2012 acquisition of FSV Payments Systems in Jacksonville, Fla., stands out as a market share coup, as it helped U.S. Bancorp, already a top 10 player in prepaid cards, gain enough scale to move up to the second largest U.S. issuer, in terms of number of cards. Joseph says she views prepaid cards as an important precursor to moving customers to mobile payments.
As much of a heavyweight as she is at her own company, where she is a mentor to many and a leader in the humanitarian projects championed by her division's network for female executives, Joseph is just as well regarded across the industry for her payments expertise. She is on the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's Payments Advisory Council, co-chairs the Card Policy Council for the American Bankers Association, and is involved with mobile payments initiatives at The Clearing House.
