Author Description

From its humble, pony-express origins, American Express grew into a powerful conglomerate with a global reach. Its famed green card became a yuppie symbol of success in the eighties and its gold and platinum cards perfectly reflected its upscale clientele. But behind the pristine image of a tony, smoothly run corporation, the house of cards was slowly beginning to collapse. Authors Jon Friedman and John Meehan, two well-respected financial journalists, take the reader. Inside the corporate boardrooms and tell, for the first time, of all the bungled deals, private fiascoes and clashing executive egos in the far-flung realm of American Express. At the center of this story is James D. Robinson III, the handsome, charismatic scion of an Atlanta banking family. In 1977, CEO Robinson began a decade of overexpansion, surrounding himself with a cast of colorful, often hotheaded characters. Sanford I. Weill, a brazen Wall Street fighter, for a. Time spearheaded AmEx's entree into the brokerage business; Peter A. Cohen was his temperamental lieutenant who led the company's star-crossed charge to take over RJR Nabisco. Edmond J. Safra, a mysterious international financier, found himself the victim of a vicious smear campaign after severing his AmEx ties. As his troubles worsened, Robinson's most loyal ally became his second wife, Linda Gosden Robinson. A celebrity in her own right who runs a controversial public. Relations business, Linda Robinson has been called the Nancy Reagan of American Express, a savvy, behind-the-scenes powerbroker. By the early 1990s, Robinson was facing one crisis after another, including a merchant revolt against the green card, the failure of AmEx's widely touted Optima Card program, and unprecedented layoffs and write-offs that have left the company beleaguered and bewildered. House of Cards presents a gripping, fly-on-the-wall account of each crisis. Besides providing a rare look at the way decisions are made inside a major corporation, the authors present a telling portrait of American business, and of its often shallow and scheming leaders.