Discover Financial Services Management
Management criteria checks 2/4
Discover Financial Services' CEO is J. Shepherd, appointed in Apr 2024, has a tenure of 1.67 years. total yearly compensation is $8.37M, comprised of 10.9% salary and 89.1% bonuses, including company stock and options. directly owns 0.01% of the company’s shares, worth $3.94M. The average tenure of the management team and the board of directors is 1.8 years and 3.5 years respectively.
Key information
J. Shepherd
Chief executive officer
US$8.4m
Total compensation
| CEO salary percentage | 10.9% |
| CEO tenure | 1yr |
| CEO ownership | 0.01% |
| Management average tenure | 1.8yrs |
| Board average tenure | 3.5yrs |
Recent management updates
Recent updates
Discover Financial: A Company With Too Many Balls In The Air
Jan 20Discover Financial: Strong Fundamentals And Strategic Outlook
Jan 08Discover Financial Services: Well-Positioned If The Acquisition Fails
Oct 25Good Value Despite Discover's Stalled Merger
Sep 24Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS) Will Pay A Dividend Of $0.70
Apr 26
Capital One Makes A Brilliant Step Forward With Discover
Mar 05Discover Financial Services: High-Yielding Digital Bank And Payment Network
Feb 05Discover Financial Services: Down But Far From Out
Jan 26Discover Financial Q4 Earnings Preview: Credit Losses Are The Primary Concern
Jan 15CEO Compensation Analysis
| Date | Total Compensation | Salary | Company Earnings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 31 2024 | US$8m | US$913k | US$4b |
| Sep 30 2024 | n/a | n/a | US$4b |
| Jun 30 2024 | n/a | n/a | US$3b |
| Mar 31 2024 | n/a | n/a | US$3b |
| Dec 31 2023 | US$188k | n/a | US$3b |
Compensation vs Market: J.'s total compensation ($USD8.37M) is below average for companies of similar size in the US market ($USD14.30M).
Compensation vs Earnings: J.'s compensation has increased by more than 20% in the past year.
CEO
J. Shepherd (69 yo)
1yr
Tenure
US$8,368,306
Compensation
Mr. J. Michael Shepherd, J.D. serves as President and Interim Chief Executive Officer of Discover Bank and Discover Financial Services since April 01, 2024. He is Independent Director of Discover Financial...
Leadership Team
| Name | Position | Tenure | Compensation | Ownership |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Interim CEO | 1yr | US$8.37m | 0.010% $ 3.9m | |
| Executive VP & CFO | 5.6yrs | US$6.77m | 0.015% $ 6.0m | |
| Executive VP & Chief Information Officer | 1.8yrs | US$4.12m | 0.0024% $ 964.1k | |
| Executive VP & President of Consumer Banking | 7.8yrs | US$5.49m | 0.026% $ 10.4m | |
| Executive VP and President of Credit & Decision Management | 1.8yrs | US$4.05m | 0.017% $ 6.7m | |
| Chief Accounting Officer | 4.4yrs | no data | 0.0041% $ 1.6m | |
| Senior Vice President of FP&A and Investor Relations | no data | no data | no data | |
| Interim Chief Legal Officer | less than a year | no data | no data | |
| Vice President of Corporate Communications | 12.2yrs | no data | no data | |
| Executive VP & Chief Human Resources Officer | 1.1yrs | no data | no data | |
| Executive VP | no data | no data | 0.018% $ 7.3m | |
| Chief Audit Executive | 1.5yrs | no data | no data |
1.8yrs
Average Tenure
52yo
Average Age
Experienced Management: DFS's management team is not considered experienced ( 1.8 years average tenure), which suggests a new team.
Board Members
| Name | Position | Tenure | Compensation | Ownership |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Interim CEO | 1.7yrs | US$8.37m | 0.010% $ 3.9m | |
| Independent Director | 9.3yrs | US$334.03k | 0.0034% $ 1.3m | |
| Independent Chairman of the Board | 16.6yrs | US$532.36k | 0.0051% $ 2.0m | |
| Independent Director | 1.9yrs | US$355.70k | 0.00071% $ 280.5k | |
| Independent Director | 2.8yrs | US$3.32m | 0.0040% $ 1.6m | |
| Independent Director | 1.8yrs | US$376.53k | 0% $ 0 | |
| Independent Director | 10.9yrs | US$379.86k | 0% $ 0 | |
| Independent Director | 5.8yrs | US$328.03k | 0% $ 0 | |
| Independent Director | 4.2yrs | US$324.53k | 0% $ 0 | |
| Independent Director | 1.6yrs | US$342.53k | 0.00049% $ 193.6k |
3.5yrs
Average Tenure
61yo
Average Age
Experienced Board: DFS's board of directors are considered experienced (3.5 years average tenure).
Company Analysis and Financial Data Status
| Data | Last Updated (UTC time) |
|---|---|
| Company Analysis | 2025/04/14 07:45 |
| End of Day Share Price | 2025/04/11 00:00 |
| Earnings | 2024/12/31 |
| Annual Earnings | 2024/12/31 |
Data Sources
The data used in our company analysis is from S&P Global Market Intelligence LLC. The following data is used in our analysis model to generate this report. Data is normalised which can introduce a delay from the source being available.
| Package | Data | Timeframe | Example US Source * |
|---|---|---|---|
| Company Financials | 10 years |
| |
| Analyst Consensus Estimates | +3 years |
|
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| Market Prices | 30 years |
| |
| Ownership | 10 years |
| |
| Management | 10 years |
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| Key Developments | 10 years |
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* Example for US securities, for non-US equivalent regulatory forms and sources are used.
Unless specified all financial data is based on a yearly period but updated quarterly. This is known as Trailing Twelve Month (TTM) or Last Twelve Month (LTM) Data. Learn more.
Analysis Model and Snowflake
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Industry and Sector Metrics
Our industry and section metrics are calculated every 6 hours by Simply Wall St, details of our process are available on Github.
Analyst Sources
Discover Financial Services is covered by 52 analysts. 14 of those analysts submitted the estimates of revenue or earnings used as inputs to our report. Analysts submissions are updated throughout the day.
| Analyst | Institution |
|---|---|
| Stephen Biggar | Argus Research Company |
| Terry Ma | Barclays |
| Bruce Harting | Barclays |