“Looking back,
[Visa] needed
him as much
or more for his
people skills,
charm and
charisma as for
his brilliance and
legal acumen,”
longtime
friend Robert
Stolebarger says
of Floum.
“Knock on wood, it ended pretty well for
all the stakeholders,” Floum says dryly.
Consensus within Visa and among
those who know Floum is that Visa’s
restructuring and IPO, while in hindsight
necessary, would not have happened
without the guiding hand of its general
counsel. While Floum characterizes
his role in the process as “not taking
things personally and keeping pushing
because [I thought] it was right and in the
interests of the company,” others mention
his gift for finding the balance between
aggressive advocacy and soothing
reassurance—something that has served
him well throughout his career.
“He’s good to work with,” says Phillips.
“Hard-nosed, forthright. Not afraid to push
it, take on big odds, but he also has a style,
a competency, a public presentation style,
that really does bring people in.”
“His style facilitates negotiation, not
conflict,” adds St. Pierre, who has worked
with Floum for over a decade and has
seen the entire process play out at Visa.
“He’s calm in the face of sometimes
emotional reactions. That really helped
overcome resistance among the [Visa]
management team.”
“Looking back, [Visa] needed him as
much or more for his people skills, charm
and charisma as for his brilliance and legal
acumen,” says Stolebarger.
Floum uses all of those skills each
day, continuing what is still an ongoing
process of change at Visa and meeting
the company’s latest challenges.
Antitrust cases have continued despite
Visa’s restructuring, while the fallout
from the Dodd-Frank Act’s Durbin
Amendment has cut approximately 50
percent from Visa’s PIN debit product
“Interlink” business.
Meanwhile, the payment industry
continues to evolve. Whereas Visa once
considered MasterCard and American
Express its primary industry rivals, it now
must confront challenges from PayPal,
Google, various telecom companies and
the newest elephant in the room, China
Union Pay. Floum characterizes these
developments as “challenges, but also
opportunities.”
“It’s like going from zero to 100
miles per hour, how quickly things are
changing,” he says, citing the continuing
challenge of transitioning from paper to
completely electronic transactions—in
which Visa has taken the lead—and the
mounting threat posed by China Union
Pay. “There are 2 billion China Union
Pay cards out there—more than there
are Visa cards,” Floum says. “This is a
government-subsidized, government-mandated monopoly. Under Chinese
law, the only network that can issue
a domestic payment card is China
Pay,” which is why there is presently
a case pending with the World Trade
Organization regarding China Union Pay
as the U.S. government seeks to break up
the Chinese government’s monopoly.
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