Game Changer

The Mastermind Behind Chase’s Industry-Changing Sapphire Reserve Card Sets Her Sights on Banking

Pam Codispoti dreamed up the travel-and-experiences rewards card, which rocked rival American Express. Now, she plans to overhaul the way millennials use banks.

Illustration: Sam Kerr for Bloomberg Businessweek

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By Jennifer Surane

January 2, 2018 at 5:00 PM UTC

This article is part of the January 8, 2018 issue of businessweek.

Pam Codispoti had a dilemma. She’d been brought on by JPMorgan Chase & Co. to develop a credit card for affluent millennials in 2014—a time when no one thought the group wanted credit cards.

“We found that just not to be true,” says Codispoti, who was president of Chase’s branded cards unit. “What they were looking for was something different than what the market had to offer at the time. They weren’t interested in their father’s credit card.” So the 52-year-old executive and her team embarked on a listening tour in living rooms and coffee shops across America to find out what millennials wanted out of a premium card. The answer? Something that offered flexible rewards for the categories they cared about: dining and travel.