First Data Corp. has raided the banking community again to fill a key executive post.
Bolstering its management team in the merchant processing area following its recent acquisition of Card Establishment Services Inc., First Data hired Linda Mock away from Visa as executive vice president in its Electronic Funds Services unit.
After she returns later this month from a vacation, Ms. Mock will report to Roger Peirce, her former boss at Visa, who is president of Electronic Funds Services.
The nation's largest credit card processor also filled the vacancy created by Jerry D. Craft, the former Wachovia Corp. executive, who recently left First Data to start his own consulting company.
In that role, James C. Bailey Jr. will be senior vice president of Bankcard Program Services. That includes the Bankcard Services division in Tulsa as well as the Credit Performance Services and Qualitec divisions in Atlanta.
Neither of the new hires nor Mr. Peirce could be reached for comments on the moves, and First Data did not make any other company officials available for interviews.
Ms. Mock will be in charge of merchant bank alliances, the joint marketing arrangements in which banks "own" relationships with retailers and are supported by First Data processing and technology.
She is the latest in a line of Visa people to move to First Data. She worked in systems and member relations, and was most recently executive vice president of processing and information products.
Before her 12 years at Visa she worked at IBM Corp., as did Mr. Peirce, who made the switch from Visa to First Data's key networking and merchant processing unit in January 1994.
Other Visa expatriates include Scott Loftesness, whom Mr. Peirce also hired, and Charles T. Russell, Visa's retired chief executive officer, now a First Data director.
First Data hired another prominent banker in February: Kathryn V. Marinello, formerly president of First Bank Systems' FBS Card Services, who is now senior vice president of First Data Resources in Omaha and president of its debit and commercial card group.
Mr. Bailey will report to William Tulko, executive vice president and chief financial officer of the Omaha-based Card Services Group.
Mr. Bailey had been senior vice president of American General Finance Inc.'s card services division, overseeing $1.5 billion bank card and private label portfolio.
Mr. Bailey also worked for Comerica Inc., Citibank, and Sears, Roebuck and Co.
His predecessor, Mr. Craft, is now president of Card Issuer Program Management in Atlanta. He spent 12 years building Wachovia into one of the top 25 credit card lenders Corp. before going to First Data, where he stayed less than a year.
