Dee Hock

Who is Dee Hock?

Dee Ward Hock is the founder and former CEO of the Visa credit card association. In 1968, Hock was an official of a local bank in Washington State that was franchised by the Bank of America to issue its credit card brand, BankAmericard. Through a series of unlikely accidents, Hock helped invent and became chief executive of the credit system that became VISA International. Early on, he convinced Bank of America to give up ownership and control of their BankAmericard credit card licensing program, forming a new company, National BankAmerica, that was owned by its member banks. The name was changed to Visa in 1976.

In May 1984, Hock resigned his management role with Visa, retiring to spend almost ten years in relative isolation working a 200-acre parcel of land on the Pacific coast to the west of Silicon Valley. He was inducted into Junior Achievement's U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1991, and the Money magazine hall of fame in 1992.

In his 1991 Business Hall of Fame acceptance speech Hock explained:

From the outset Hock had built Visa as a deliberately uncentralized organization.