Taking charge: Alumna runs American Express merchant network
Most people probably don’t think deeply about their credit cards. They are just pieces of plastic that provide a shopping convenience. But Kim Goodman (BA 1987 Poli Sci, MS 1987 IE) is not most people. In September 2007 she joined American Express as an Executive Vice President responsible for maintaining and expanding the company’s multifaceted relationships with merchants across all of North America. It’s an enormous responsibility. This holiday season, for example, American Express enabled hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions between the company’s merchants and card holders. Before American Express, Goodman was a senior executive at Dell. She says what gets her going is being in dynamic, innovative businesses. She credits Stanford for helping her develop that passion. Stanford, and the community at large, meanwhile, have benefited from her longstanding interest in getting involved in the communities in which she finds herself.
Tell us what your new job entails.
My job is to work very diligently with the merchants across North America. Our goal in working with those merchants is to, number one, make sure all elements of our service delivery are done in a high quality and flawless manner so that our merchants can conduct their business with our card members in a fast, efficient, and effective way. Number two, is that our teams are trying to deliver meaningful value to those merchants. Typically that takes the form of us working on marketing initiatives or providing insightful data from our “closed loop” network to help them propel their businesses forward and help them grow faster and attract more customers.
What does it mean to get data from a “closed loop” network?
American Express is quite unique in the payments industry because we both work with and “own” the relationship with the card member and we “own” the relationship with the merchant. And we manage and own a network business that sits between the two. Because American Express manages all of it within one company it gives us access to a huge amount of data across all three pieces of the business of any given transaction. We can therefore capture the data and mine it for the benefit of our merchants. So for example some of our merchants can get insights from the American Express card member base, such as market share for their type of business in their specific geography. So if you own a restaurant in downtown Chicago that sells Italian food in a middle price range, we can tell you what your market share is in our card member base which is a darn good proxy of what your market share is in general. We can tell you what level of repeat business you have based on what we see from our card members and how that compares to an overall average that we might see for comparable businesses. We can tell businesses looking to expand where are some of the best locations for expansion, based on where we see card member spending growing.
What kind of marketing efforts do you engage in with merchants?
We have a multitude of programs where we are communicating with card members on behalf of the merchants. An example of a marketing effort this holiday season for all American Express card members is something we call WishList, which is an opportunity for our card members to go online and buy reasonably extravagant gifts at inexpensive prices relative to the true value. One of the items we have on WishList this year is a trip around the world on Continental. The card member who bids on it and wins will be able to visit up to six destinations in over 150 countries That would normally cost tens of thousands of dollars but you could get it on wish list for $3,000. We have all these things that are exotic and fun and unusual. They attract a lot of our card members to take a look at them and maybe bid on them, but the key thing from my standpoint is that it gives the merchants more exposure in a high quality, fun way.
What inspires you in your work?
I’ve geared my career to companies and industries where there is a great degree of innovation. They tend to be dynamic places. When I was in consulting I did a lot of telecommunications and technology. And then I worked directly in technology in the seven years I worked for Dell. There, I got to work in many ways across much of the industry, either in the supply base or with potential partners, etc. And now I’m at American Express — it’s a very dynamic company with a lot of emphasis on innovation. From Stanford I have an engineering background so I just naturally gravitate to and enjoy the elements of innovation and change associated with a dynamic company or a dynamic industry.
Speaking of Stanford, what was your experience here?
I was drawn to Stanford because it was not just a top school overall but it was a top school that had highly rated programs in many different subjects. When I came to college I thought I was going to be a lawyer. I had a strong interest in political science, and chose that as my undergraduate major. At the same time I was also interested in engineering because I had a strong math background and I was a reasonably logical person. In high school I participated in a number of programs that encouraged minority students and female students to pursue math and science. So I thought maybe I’d study both political science and mechanical engineering. Then at Stanford, I started to develop and cultivate an interest in business. I decided to get a masters in industrial engineering, as a co-term, so I could still be an engineer but get a lot of good background and exposure in subjects that were more business-oriented. My experience at Stanford was absolutely extraordinary. I felt that there was a high degree of dedication to me as an individual who was growing and learning. There was a high degree of dedication to my education but it was also a quality community that was dedicated and thoughtful about how to create the right kind of environment to really blossom in. I spent a lot of time in leadership roles on campus working on the university committees that were joint committees between the students, faculty and administration and I found that I was a fully respected member of those committees. They helped with my own development and I contributed to the university. My senior year I was a member of the council of the president of the ASSU. I was also a R.A. in one of the dorms in Sterling Quad. In my Junior year I served on the committee for undergraduate education. I also ran the “Sunday Flicks” business. In my sophomore year I served on the committee for undergraduate admissions.
And that sense of community service has continued after school.
I find in my adult life that community work is vitally important to me. Along with family, career and my faith it is one of the things I enjoy the most. But I am less interested in serving on big boards and committees. I like to find places in communities where I can roll up my sleeves and make a personal contribution. A couple of examples include my work as a Girl Scout troop leader at a public housing project in East Oakland. That was a case where I went either every week or every other week; we met at the Head Start center, and/or went on field trips. I was engaged with the same set of girls from the time that they were 9 years old to the time that they were 17. It meant the world to me, not just what I was contributing to them but what they gave back to me. They were delightful people and I was privileged to be a part of their lives. Similarly when I was in Austin, there is only one African American Catholic Church. My husband and I were members of that church and we became the leaders of the fundraising committee. We were pretty good leaders so we raised a good amount of money for them, and it got us integrally involved with the wonderful people that were on our committee and various people around the church. We were able to pull together the whole community to contribute to one or two major events during the year. I really love doing community work and I like doing it at a grassroots level.
