Edward R. Telling
Background
Edward Telling was the visionary Chairman and CEO of Sears, Roebuck and Co., who transformed Sears in the 1980s by acquiring Dean Witter Reynolds and Coldwell Banker.
Role at Discover Financial Services
Edward Telling was the corporate architect behind the founding of Discover. In the early 1980s, Telling recognized that Sears could leverage its 25 million retail credit cardholders to launch a national financial network. Telling greenlit the multi-hundred-million-dollar investment to build Discover Card's independent telecommunications and transaction routing infrastructure, launching the card in 1986.