Edward R. Telling

Edward R. Telling possessed an incredibly deep, decades-long background in mass consumer retail and massive corporate management. Having started as a simple store trainee at Sears in 1946 and aggressively rising through the corporate ranks to manage massive territorial divisions, this intense background in understanding the purchasing habits of Middle America provided the exact strategic blueprint required to successfully launch a mass-market financial product like the Discover Card.

Edward R. Telling was a highly influential American business executive and the transformative Chairman and CEO of Sears, Roebuck & Co., who spearheaded the massive corporate launch of Discover Financial Services. Serving as CEO from 1978 to 1985, Telling recognized that Sears needed to aggressively diversify beyond traditional retail to survive. He orchestrated a massive 'one-stop' financial services strategy, aggressively acquiring the Dean Witter Reynolds brokerage and Coldwell Banker real estate firm in 1981. As the ultimate culmination of this massive financial pivot, Telling directed the highly ambitious creation and 1985 launch of the Discover Card. By eliminating annual fees and introducing cash-back rewards, he successfully disrupted the massive Visa and Mastercard duopoly, completely altering the American credit industry.