FINALIST: Financial Services
John Pitzaferro founded TransNational Bankcard as an ethical credit card processing company in 1999. He had been in the industry for a while but found himself wanting for a company that truly cared for everyone. He knew his greatest strength was his personal integrity. He wouldn’t do things that violated his values or betrayed his sense of loyalty to those employees who had worked alongside him to accomplish the goals of his company.
Since there are trillions of dollars that flow through payment processing systems each year, it is extremely rare to find a company that truly holds the line and does not give into the temptation to mislead, complicate or charge unusually high interest rates, he says. Pitzaferro, CEO of TransNational, is proud that he has built his company with ethics and integrity intact.
Accordingly, he understands that if a company is so committed, it must structure its compensation models for its sales staff to support those particular values. Pitzaferro has created a compensation plan to reward the sales staff more for creating a relationship based on trust that survives over time than for making a sale.
With such a structure, Pitzaferro reinforces that trust, integrity and follow-through are what it takes to be successful and are what actually inhibits dishonest or pressure-laden sales tactics that tend to define the industry.
For the past two years, TransNational was named one of the “Top 100 companies to work for in Chicago” and earned a spot in the “Top 12 of small businesses to work for in Chicago” by the Chicago Tribune. TransNational is also a three-time Better Business Bureau Torch Award nominee for Marketplace Ethics. ■
HOW TO REACH: TransNational Bankcard LLC, www.tnbci.com
