For a company so closely tied to the business travel elite, the Covid lockdown orders issued in March 2020 were particularly troubling for American Express. With shops shut, borders closed and its cohort of jetsetting business customers suddenly chained to their kitchen tables, the credit card company was hit with an immediate drop in consumer spending.
Compounded by the $1.7bn (£1.4bn) put aside by the end of March to cover potential defaults – by Amex customers financially squeezed by illness, layoffs, or new caring responsibilities – the pandemic quickly took its toll. Profits plunged 76% to just $367m in the first three months of the year, and took another 85% year-on-year tumble in the second quarter.
“It was probably one of the most challenging periods for anyone in the past 20 years,” says Hannah Lewis. The 44-year-old, who was appointed head of Amex UK in 2022 after 14 years at the company, says the pandemic sparked some soul-searching for the business, which has relied heavily on travel ever since it was founded as an express shipping company in 1850.
With housebound customers unable to use its inhouse travel agency, and no longer attracted to its famous travel reward perks, the company known for prestigious partnerships with airlines including British Airways, Emirates and Etihad was forced to change direction. “We were all locked in our homes. So we made a very deliberate decision at that point to invest in non-travel benefits,” she says.
That included online workshops – ranging from in-depth courses on classic cars to home cooking – digital BFI screenings, and doubling down on its “shop small” campaign, which encouraged customers to use their Amex cards at local stores.
That campaign, Lewis says, also helped challenge what she says is the “outdated” claim that Amex is rarely accepted on the high street – because of the supposedly high transaction fees for retailers compared with those levied by rivals such as Visa and Mastercard. Lewis refuses to discuss fees, but suggests the fact that Amex is now accepted at the likes of Homebase, Aldi and Lidl proves its cards are increasingly used by ordinary, if slightly more affluent, customers.
Ultimately, pandemic-era default fears proved to be overblown. Thanks to Covid payment holidays, as well as the relative wealth of its customers, Amex was able to release $674m of the funds it had put aside at the end of 2020.
And earlier this year, the company – which does not break out its UK results – said customers had spent a record $426bn in the second quarter, helping push profits up 11% to $2.2bn, despite the cost of living crisis. “We’re seeing a strong desire [from customers] to continue to get out there and enjoy life,” Lewis says.
The UK boss is not planning to get in the way of that momentum. She says Amex has no plans to row back on partnerships with the likes of British Airways any time soon, despite growing public concern over the impact of air travel’s carbon emissions on the climate crisis.
“It’s a partnership that our customers really value,” Lewis says. “We are certainly are very committed to our ESG [environment, sustainability and governance] goals … we feel pretty good about how we’re making progress with that. And I don’t see that changing our relationship with British Airways in any way.”
The Yorkshire-born boss does not come across as someone willing to rock the boat. Born in Halifax to two teachers, Lewis says she was a determined and competitive child, whose love for maths and sciences led her to an engineering degree in metallurgy at Oxford. But a postgraduate stint at Boston Consulting Group helped her realise her problem-solving skills were better applied to the business world, which was heavily male-dominated when she joined the workforce in 2002.
“I certainly had client environments during my consulting days where I remember walking into one office and hearing apologies about them having [the Sun’s] Page 3 posters on the wall. There was a lot of that kind of thing, where it was clear you’re the first female who has been in this room for a long time.”
While Lewis says she did not experience overt sexism as she climbed the corporate ladder, she did have to shrug off unhelpful tropes of what it meant to be a woman in power. “I probably had an image of what a senior female financial services leader might look like. It probably involved heels … shoulder pads and power suits, and I quickly learned that that wasn’t actually the right perception.”
Those cliches certainly did not resonate for long with the relatively reserved Lewis, who seems far more at ease in a casual uniform of blazer, jeans and trainers. “I realised quickly that I was going to be much better at being me than trying to be some sort of stereotyped image of a powerful senior leader.”
She insists that stereotypes about the typical Amex customer being a “white middle-aged businessman” are wrong, saying the company continues to draw millennial and gen Z borrowers interested in perks and rewards.
That is despite the controversial rise in unregulated buy now, pay later (BNPL) products, which charge retailers, rather than shoppers, for the privilege of splitting purchases into smaller, monthly payments – often without interest.
The Amex UK boss says she does not expect BNPL to displace the credit card market, but her company is clearly not above jumping on the bandwagon. In 2017, roughly two years after BNPL giant Klarna entered the American market, Amex’s US business introduced its own “Plan It” product, allowing customers to make monthly payments on a large purchase for a fixed fee, with interest, while still earning rewards. It would be no surprise if Amex decided to offer the same to UK customers. But Lewis, for now, is keeping her cards close to her chest. “Watch this space,” she says.
CV
Age 44
Family Married with two daughters.
Education Crossley Heath grammar school, Halifax, University of Oxford and London Business School.
Pay Undisclosed.
Last holiday “Relaxing on a Greek beach with my family.”
Best advice she’s been given “Don’t wait for people to figure out your ambitions – you need to tell them.”
Phrase she overuses “Does that make sense?” She says she uses it a lot, because “I really want to give colleagues an opportunity to question or challenge what they’re hearing.”
How she relaxes Spending time with her children and catching up with friends.
