Christina Gold Leading Change at Western Union

Western Union is a worldwide telecommunications company founded in New York in 1851. In the first few decades of its development, Western Union was formally a printing company, but eventually expanded into technology, including stock tickers, electronic money transfers, and credit cards (Konrad & Mitchell, 2008). Most of Western Union’s revenue stems from customer-to-customer money transfers; the company expected over eighty million transfers in 2003 (Konrad & Mitchell, 2008). With over four thousand employees, Western Union keeps most positions domestic; however, many locations around the world, in nearly two hundred countries, employ 60% of the positions (Konrad & Mitchell, 2008).

Christina Gold moved between multiple high-ranking executive and CEO positions for companies like Avon and Excel Communications, and eventually created her own consultancy company called The Beaconsfield Group (Konrad & Mitchell, 2008). Gold was successful in her positions, developing strategies in many telecommunications companies. Gold was hired as the President of First Data Corporation’s largest division, Western Union (Konrad & Mitchell, 2008).

Established in the early 90s, First Data Corporation “focus was facilitating the purchase of goods and services through almost any form of payment” (Konrad & Mitchell, 2008, p. 460). First Data provided electronic commerce and payments to millions of merchants by 2002. Their growth was dependent upon adapting to ever-changing technology, especially in the new millennium.

Identification of the Strengths & Weaknesses

Western Union’s primary strength is that their system platform is standard across all locations around the world. The consistency impacts both internal operations and external operations, as well as influences the overall brand of the organization (Konrad & Mitchell, 2008). Gold herself is an asset to the organization and provides a lot of knowledge and wisdom that surely strengthens Western Union as a whole. Her leadership...