American Express 2007 Annual Report Download - page 20

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LETTER TO SHAREHOLDERS
Instead of using geographic regions as an organizing principle, we realigned the company according to our
two major customer groups:
• Global Consumer, which includes all proprietary consumer cards, our customer service network,
small-business services, prepaid products and consumer travel worldwide.
• Global Business-to-Business, which includes our merchant business, network services, commercial
card and business travel worldwide.
These two global franchises possess complementary strengths. Our Consumer Group benefits from
our affluent global customer base, marketing expertise, broad range of acquisition channels and strong
risk management capabilities. In our Business-to-Business Group, key advantages include our many
corporate, merchant and network partner relationships, sales and client management expertise, and
processing capabilities. Both businesses also share a number of companywide assets including the
American Express brand and premium positioning, customer servicing capabilities, and our information
management and reward platforms. By applying these capabilities across multiple businesses, we’re able
to more effectively use our infrastructure and improve our overall economics.
We chose two of our most experienced and successful leaders to head each business: Al Kelly, named
president of American Express Company, for the Global Consumer Group; and Ed Gilligan, named vice
chairman of the company, for the Global Business-to-Business Group. Both leaders and their teams of
American Express people worldwide continued to build on their strong track records in 2007. They cre-
ated innovative new products and services, enhanced longtime strengths, attracted and retained millions
of high-quality customers, and developed creative ideas for capturing more of their business.
18
2007 RESULTS: GLOBAL CONSUMER GROUP
All segments of our consumer business contributed to American Express’ strong performance in 2007.
Spending rose 12 percent on proprietary consumer cards and 15 percent on small- business cards in the
United States. International consumer and small-business spending rose 14 percent (or 8 percent adjusted
for foreign exchange translation and the 2006 sales of our card-related operations in Brazil, Malaysia
American Express issues a wide range of cards to meet the specific needs of consumers, small businesses,
midsize companies and large corporations worldwide. During the year, we launched distinctive new cards
including the Plum Card for U.S. small-business owners, luxury cobrands with Harrods in the U.K. and
BMW in Austria and Germany, Blue Sky in Australia, premium corporate cards in Europe, and a line of
customizable corporate Gift Cards.
CARDS TAILORED FOR DIFFERENT NEEDS