Visa Hires Capital One’s Jack Forestell to be Head of Product
Visa told Bank Innovation that it was planning on hiring aggressively for its new San Francisco office and it looks like they’ve already started — by poaching a major executive from a competitor.
Capital One Bank’s executive vice president and head of digital Jack Forestell will be leaving the company to become the head of product at Visa, according to sources with knowledge of the move. Forestell’s departure is a “done deal” and has been for a few weeks now, though his LinkedIn page still says that he is with Capital One.
UPDATE: Visa has confirmed that Jack Forestell was hired to be the newly created position of head of core products.
According to Visa’s executive page, McCarthy was “recently appointed to the position of Global Head of Innovation and Strategic Partnerships” at Visa, where he’ll be developing partnerships and molding Visa’s technology and product roadmaps. McCarthy’s promotion is interesting because of the recent rumors regarding an Apple-Visa partnership for the future iWallet service — developing partnerships with major tech companies like Apple seems to be part of McCarthy’s job description.
Our sources say this is a “big blow” to Capital One, where Forestell has worked since 2001. According to Forestell’s LinkedIn, Forestell is in charge of “digital strategy, product development and operations teams, including Capital One Labs (DC, NY, SF), mobile, web and e-commerce products, mobile commerce and emerging payments products, experience design, digital operations and fulfillment, social media, and digital analytics and Big Data Labs.” Capital One has been singled out by analysts and experts (most recently from Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who called Capital One, the “Apple of banks,” as Forestell mentioned on his Twitter account) for their focus on digital products and innovation.
Forestall brings his digital expertise to Visa (he’s been the head of digital at Capital One for almost five years) at a time when the company is investing heavily in its digital solutions. Visa recently announced Visa Checkout, a sort of digital credit card aimed to help facilitate e-commerce transactions, and announced the opening of its new San Francisco office. With the aforementioned Visa-Apple partnership rumors, Forestall’s digital experience may help Visa create more products that tech companies will be eager to integrate with.
UPDATE 2: Capital One sent Bank Innovation the following statement regarding Forestell’s departure:
We wish Jack well in his new role at Visa. Jack’s played a leading role in building our digital capabilities at Capital One, and his hiring is a testament to high regard others’ have for our digital and technology talent. Visa is a valued partner, and we look forward to working with Jack as we develop new payments solutions.We have an exceptionally strong digital team at Capital One and they will continue to drive innovation in our technology, software development, design and data capabilities.
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