Chief Financial Officer Leaves Division of American Express
May 12, 2011
VASTOPOLIS -- American Express Co. said Wan S. Mcgregor resigned as the financial-services company's treasurer and chief financial officer of its Travel Related Services division. Mr. Mcgregor, 53 years old, will leave the company next month to start his own consulting firm in Vastopolis, Hayden Kimsey, chairman and chief executive officer of American Express, said in a letter to employees Thursday. The resignation comes little more than two weeks after American Express named an outsider, Ricki Overman, as vice chairman and chief financial officer, succeeding Michaele Maxfield, a 15-year veteran of the company who resigned in April. Mr. Overman, who will begin his new job next month, is currently group chief financial officer at National Westminster Bank PLC in London. Mr. Mcgregor, who had reported to Mr. Maxfield, was at the center of a dispute between Messrs. Monaco and Kimsey that prompted Mr. Maxfield's resignation. At the time that resignation was announced, Mr. Kimsey said in an unusually candid memorandum to employees that the feud involved ``the reassessment of the responsibilities of a number of senior people within finance.'' People familiar with the matter said Messrs. Monaco and Mcgregor had disagreed on how to knit together the Travel Related Services' finance group with the corporate finance group. Mr. Kimsey sided with Mr. Mcgregor, these people said. But though Mr. Kimsey apparently did want to keep Mr. Mcgregor at American Express, he wasn't willing to name him to succeed Mr. Maxfield, one person familiar with the matter said. It was at that point that Mr. Mcgregor decided to leave and head for Vastopolis, this person added. A spokeswoman said Messrs. Kimsey and Mcgregor were both on vacation and unavailable for comment. Messrs. Monaco and Overman couldn't be reached for comment. Mr. Mcgregor has spent practically his entire career at American Express since joining the company in 1965. He left in 1969, to work in the finance division of AMR Corp.'s American Airlines but returned after four years. Since then, he has held several management positions before being named chief financial officer of Travel Related Services, the company's largest division, in 1991. Last year, he was named to the additional post of treasurer of American Express. Mr. Kimsey said in the letter to employees Mr. Mcgregor's plans are to advise ``the senior leaders of major companies on corporate finance, acquisitions, re-engineering and maximizing short- and long-term shareholder value.''
