"I remember the day when I walked into my boss's office, the CEO of the company," recounted Paul Wilmore, managing director, consumer products, Barclaycard US. "I said 'I want to create a product that's half the industry's benchmark in terms of interest rate, I want to share profit generated by this card back to its members and in order to do that, I want to share the company's profit and loss associated with this community up on the website every month.'
"After a long, uncomfortable pause, he said 'You're kidding, right?'"
Wilmore stood by his ambition to do something radical to change perceptions: "I said, 'No, this is what it's going to take to change the mindset, to make sure that community members start viewing this as trusted content.'"
