SAN FRANCISCO – Visa USA took another step toward restructuring itself from being a private association of credit and debit card issuing financial institutions to being a publicly traded company by naming four new independent board members. The four new members named at an April 28 meeting were Philip DeFeo, a managing partner of Lithos Capital Partners, LLC, a private venture capital firm; Linda Baker Keen, a manager with a history of working with a variety of companies, including payments-rival American Express; Jon Madonna, former CEO of KMPG Peat Marwick, and John Swanson, CEO of CA Inc., an international information technology firm.

"This is a very important step in the process of transforming our board to include a majority of independent directors," said John Philip Coghlan, CEO of Visa USA.

"Although we are a private organization, this is one of a number of steps Visa is taking to meet today's standard of good governance. In addition to the breadth of perspective and experience that these new board members will provide, we believe these changes will strengthen Visa's position in the electronic payments industry," he added.