American Express president steps down

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- American Express Co.'s president Alfred Kelly will leave the company early next year to seek an opportunity as a chief executive elsewhere, the large credit card issuer said Monday.

Bank of America Corp., the largest U.S. bank, is currently looking for a chief executive, after CEO Kenneth Lewis announced he will leave the company by year-end.

"In the context of discussions we have had about longer term plans for the organization, Al made clear to me that he wanted the opportunity to run a company as chief executive," chief executive Kenneth Chenault said in a statement.

"Given my own plans for the coming years, we both agreed that was not likely to happen at American Express in the short term. Al concluded it did not make sense for him to be part of the new organizational structure, and that it was an appropriate time to look at opportunities outside of American Express."

American Express (AXP, Fortune 500), the largest credit card company by revenue, also announced the creation of a new global services organization -- including customer service, technologies, operations, business processing and information management -- and a new enterprise growth organization to increase fee revenue and drive growth into new payment business.