After receiving her first job opportunity, Kimberly Fitzsimmons continued to expand on it until she received a leadership role. She loves client-facing teams, growing and building teams, and capitalizing on different opportunities that were presented to her at the time. She currently serves as the president of global merchant services at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. since 2019, previously serving the company as the United States president of Chase commerce solutions from 2014 to 2019. Her responsibilities are dealing with all the global, corporate and investment bank clients within JP Morgan that do credit card requiring. When you think about the largest retailers in the world like Amazon, Google and Facebook, those are her clients. Thus, the objective is to bring in other banking products for the clients with a volume perspective of credit cards, renews, price and negotiations, or anything along those lines.
Ms. Fitzsimmons began her professional career as the senior vice president of Concord EFS in 1988, remaining in this position for eight years before becoming the principal and founder of H&F services at DBA EFS Card Services from 1996 to 2003. She then returned to her original role at Concord EFS for an additional year before serving as executive vice president of merchant services and community banks at First Data Corporation from 2004 to 2012. She went on to join Cynergy Data as a chief executive officer from 2012 to 2013 and strategic advisor in 2014. Additionally, she is the past president of both the Electronic Transaction Association and W.Net.
A memorable time in Ms. Fitzsimmons’ career that she will never forget was when she started in sales and, after six months, she turned in her notice to Concord to get into management. Her mind was to run the place, but the gentleman who hired her and was a mentor throughout her career was out of town in Dallas and called her phone. It was a small company so he knew who she was, and he wanted to talk to her. He came that Friday morning and terminated her immediate manager, and called her into his office to tell her that they had an opening in a managerial position. Ms. Fitzsimmons was glad that he didn’t let her quit.
Prior to the start of her career, Ms. Fitzsimmons graduated from Parkway West Senior High School in Ballwin, Missouri, in 1983. She pursued a formal education at the School of Business Administration at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, where she attained a Bachelor of Business Administration in 1987. She attributes her success to her large drive for success and her disdain for losing, and she has a very competitive nature. Being true, honest and a person of moral integrity is also what she believes is a part of it. Since graduating, Ms. Fitzsimmons serves on the board of directors for the Healthy Kids Foundation.
In light of her exceptional undertakings, Ms. Fitzsimmons is the recipient of numerous honors and accolades throughout her career. She received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Midwest Acquirers Association and was voted one of the Industry’s Most Influential Women in Payments. In 2020, she was also voted one of the Top 100 Global Sales Leaders, as well as one of the Industry’s Most Influential Women in Payments. Today, Ms. Fitzsimmons is the proud mother of one daughter and one son.
