Visa welcomes Michelle Gethers-Clark as Chief Diversity Officer & Head of Corporate Responsibility

By Pavithra R

Visa has announced Michelle Gethers-Clark’s appointment as Chief Diversity Officer and Head of Corporate Responsibility, effective from May. Gethers-Clark will join Visa’s Executive Committee and report to Chairman and CEO, Al Kelly.

Gethers-Clark, in this role, will lead Visa’s inclusion and diversity, social impact and sustainability efforts globally. She will also be responsible for ensuring Visa’s organization and culture are truly inclusive and managing initiatives to enhance Visa’s commitment to being responsible, ethical, and sustainable. She will also oversee Visa’s social impact efforts to drive equitable economic growth with a particular focus on supporting small and micro-businesses (SMBs).

“As a global, purpose-led company we are guided by the belief that economies that include everyone, everywhere will uplift everyone, everywhere. Michelle has tremendous leadership experience closely aligning inclusion and diversity, social impact and philanthropic initiatives to business objectives and producing transformational results. We are very excited for Michelle to join our team and help us to continue to drive positive impact within Visa and around the world,” said Al Kelly.

Most recently, Gethers-Clark served as President & CEO of the United Way of Greater Greensboro, where she led fundraising and distribution of $90mn to social impact programs focused on producing positive life, health and economic outcomes for children and families. Before United Way, Gethers-Clark spent more than 2 decades at American Express, where she held various senior roles across internal audit, risk management and credit and collection operations, ultimately becoming the company’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of Card Operations.

“It is my honor to join the Visa team and lead our strategic inclusion and diversity, social impact and sustainability efforts globally. I bring to this role a passion for partnering with internal and external team members to continue bringing to life what this work can mean for our company, our customers and our communities around the world,” said Gethers-Clark.