'What goes in their head' series - Richard Fairbank, CEO, Capital One

02.09.06 06:49 PM By S.Swaminathan

In a new series of posts from this month, I will  start writing about what makes people behind successful companies do it the way they have gone out and done things. Things that have changed the company, the culture and of course their customers' lives too. 

Here's first in the series, an interview with  Richard Fairbank, chairman and chief executive of the credit card giant Capital One. Here's are some lovely quotes from this interview:

"What my dad ... taught me was, success is not about how much money you make or about promotions and rewards and things like that," Fairbank, 55, said in an interview last month "Success is about having a quest and pouring yourself into that quest ... and the magical things that are happening on your journey to you and to those that you're sharing the journey with."

In the business world, Richard Fairbank's own quest, as he calls it, began in the late 1980s with a revolutionary idea. He decided that instead of rejecting many credit applicants and offering the rest of them a single product -- a card with a 19.8 percent interest rate and $20 annual fee -- card issuers should analyze credit records and other data to offer consumers a variety of terms tailored to their risk and needs.

"Every single person in the U.S. had the same credit card," Fairbank said. "It absolutely no sense ... that you would have this product of empowerment be a one-size-fits-all."

S.Swaminathan

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