Good morning. For the past eight years, Stephen Squeri has served as CEO of American Express, but he built his entire career, more than 40 years, inside the company.
In a new Fortune feature, my colleague Shawn Tully provides an in-depth and deeply entertaining profile of Squeri. The Queens outsider—who was told he’d never be CEO—managed to make Amex cool again in part by betting young people wouldn’t blink at paying $900 per year for a premium card. His performance for shareholders now bests JPMorgan, Visa, and the S&P 500.
Tully writes: “Squeri has forged one of the top growth engines in financial services by luring lovers of luxe as never before, and trending exclusive and young in a big way. The success of Squeri’s highly original, against-the-tide strategy is something of a revelation. Though he heads the eighth largest U.S. player in financial services by market cap ($200 billion), and a fabled institution that ranks as Warren Buffett’s second largest holding at Berkshire Hathaway behind Apple, the Amex chief is little known to the public and keeps a far lower profile than, say, JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon or Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon.”
