STEVE FAKTOR is the former Vice President of Growth and Innovation and head of the Chairman's Innovation Fund at American Express. There, he developed and incubated numerous growth ventures including Zync, Loyalty Edge, and Private Sales, a joint venture with Vente Privée. Steve is the founder of Blue Beacon Partners, LLC, which helps start-ups and corporations innovate new products and services, think big, and build a sustainable growth pipeline. In his career, Steve has created several $100-million-plus businesses, generated billions in sales volume, and deployed three enterprise-level innovation programs. Previously, Steve was a senior innovation and strategy executive at Citi and MasterCard. As a management consultant at Arthur Andersen, Steve led strategy, marketing, and technology projects for clients like WPP (Ogilvy), Samsung, JVC, Bombardier, Boise Cascade, Omnicom Group, and PSEG. As a futurist, innovator, and digital payments expert, Steve is a popular global keynote speaker on future growth oppor
