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Jul 23, 2019

Discover hires former PayPal general counsel

Former Discover general counsel Kelly McNamara Corley retired earlier this year

Wanji Walcott has been hired as chief legal officer and general counsel for Discover Financial Services. She is also a member of the direct banking and payment services firm’s executive committee.

Walcott now leads Discover’s corporate legal function, managing litigation and legislative and regulatory affairs. She succeeds former general counsel Kelly McNamara Corley, who retired earlier this year after working with the company for 36 years, according to Discover.

Walcott previously worked at PayPal, where she was senior vice president and general counsel, having led the company’s global legal team since 2017. During her time at PayPal, she launched a company pro bono program and held leadership roles in efforts to boost employee development, diversity and inclusion, such as PayPal’s black employee and women employee networks.

Before PayPal, Walcott spent 13 years with American Express where her roles included senior vice president and managing counsel for global legal support in payments, e-commerce/social media initiatives and data security.

Discover is one of the largest card issuers in the US.

‘Wanji’s extensive experience working with global payments organizations and navigating an evolving regulatory landscape will help guide our success and strategy for growth,’ says Discover CEO and president Roger Hochschild in a statement.

 

Ben Maiden

Ben Maiden is the editor-at-large of Governance Intelligence, an IR Media publication, having joined the company in December 2016. He is based in New York. Ben was previously managing editor of Compliance Reporter, covering regulatory and compliance...