Visa Names NBCUniversal’s Prabhu as CFO, Succeeding Pollitt

Visa Inc., the world’s biggest payments network, named Vasant M. Prabhu to succeed Byron Pollitt as chief financial officer.

Prabhu, 55, will start Feb. 9 and joins from NBCUniversal Media LLC, where he served as CFO, Foster City, California-based Visa said Feb. 2 in a statement. Before starting at NBCUniversal last year, Prabhu spent a decade as finance chief at Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., according to the statement.

“We are thrilled to have Vasant join the Visa leadership team,” Chief Executive Officer Charlie Scharf, 49, said in the statement, adding that Pollitt “was instrumental in helping transition Visa from a private association to a successful global, public company.”

Visa said in June that Pollitt, 63, who has been CFO since 2007, planned to retire within 12 months. Prabhu will take over the finances of a company that generated $5.44 billion of net income in fiscal 2014 on $12.7 billion of revenue. Since Visa went public in 2008, the stock has increased more than fivefold.

Prabhu, who will report to Scharf, will receive an annual salary of $850,000 plus a bonus of as much as 300% of that amount, Visa said in a separate regulatory filing. He’ll also get a cash award of $2.5 million upon starting the job, as well as restricted stock valued at $7.5 million, Visa said.

Before joining Visa, Pollitt was CFO at Gap Inc. and Walt Disney Co. His retirement will leave four executives remaining on the company’s management team from before its IPO.