Visa International has filled the last senior-level vacancy in its global support services group, and the job is bigger than originally advertised.
Daniel Eitingon, president of global support services, reached into another part of his organization to name Wolfgang Heinrich executive vice president of regional relations.
In addition to coordinating communications between Visa's San Francisco- area headquarters-known as "central"-and the six geographical Visa regions, Mr. Heinrich will also oversee an extensive customer service function.
Mr. Eitingon, the former First Interstate Bancorp technology executive who joined Visa last February, had put only the regional liaison role in his initial description of the job.
Loraine Yeakle, senior vice president and manager of the 500-employee customer service group, will move into regional relations. She has been in Ron Olive's processing services group and is transferring to underscore that customer service is a "strategic asset," Visa said.
Ms. Yeakle and seven others-one officer each for central and the six regions, such as Visa U.S.A. and Visa Asia-Pacific-will report to Mr. Heinrich when he officially moves into his new role Oct. 1.
Only one of those other jobs has been filled: Simon Jarvis, vice president for the European Union region. Mr. Jarvis was previously responsible for U.K. member relations within Visa EU.
Mr. Heinrich is taking a high-visibility opening, the only one on the organization chart that Mr. Eitingon streamlined after succeeding the original architect of his group, Wesley Tallman, who retired unexpectedly.
Others in the inner circle are Mr. Olive; Una Somerville, overseeing current products; Francois Dutray, emerging products; William Chenevich, systems; Thomas Kappock, corporate strategy; and Richard Lonergan, special projects.
Mr. Eitingon had placed great emphasis on the need to improve communications and support among central and the regions. Drawing on the "best practices" of other companies and industries, he sought to create "an internal mechanism that will link Visa's six regions with support teams, manage two-way communications, provide rapid answers to questions, advocate for the regions in setting priorities, and provide a forum for sharing best practices."
Mr. Heinrich "is well suited to head this function, as he has in-depth market expertise and an international business perspective," Mr. Eitingon said.
A native of Germany, Mr. Heinrich, 48, joined Visa in 1995 after being managing director of the Frankfurt-based processor B+S Card Service. He is wrapping up his responsibilities as deputy to Mr. Dutray in emerging products, concentrating on smart card projects in the United Kingdom, Russia, and elsewhere.
In an interview last week, Mr. Heinrich stressed that Visa is not out to "put another layer in place between the regions and headquarters." Rather than replacing existing channels of communication, it wants to "build or enhance relationships where they don't exist or need to be refined."
To that end, he will keep his liaison group small-just the initial regional representatives-unless and until it becomes clear he should "add people to fulfill specific functions."
The job assignments could range from smoothing fulfillment of requests for technology upgrades to coordinating marketing and public relations initiatives across regions.
"Requests for a program change to accommodate enhanced functionality in VisaNet work pretty well," he said. "But there are communications aspects that go well beyond that. We are looking at room for improvement-we can leverage off the technology aspects in areas of product development, brand alignment, and marketing.
"There is a difference between streamlining on paper and actually carrying it out," he said, referring to upgrade and prioritization processes.
"We hope to fulfill this in a way that is a real help and not an administrative burden."
On the customer service side, Mr. Heinrich said Visa wants to bring both its internal help desk and the center that responds to emergency cardholder calls up to prevailing "24 by 7" commercial standards.
"We want to look at call centers in a more entrepreneurial way," Mr. Heinrich said. "It is not just the old, internal help desk. We want to explore the possibilities that arise from having the infrastructure in place."
