American Greetings taps brothers for leadership

Two years after restructuring and trimming its work force, American Greetings Corp. turned over its corporate leadership Tuesday but kept it within the family.

The board named Zev Weiss as chief executive and brother Jeffrey Weiss as president and chief operating officer starting June 1. Their father, Morry Weiss, chairman and chief executive since 1992, will remain chairman.

James Spira, president and chief operating officer, will retire but continue to serve as a board member and adviser to management.

American Greetings is the largest publicly held greeting card maker and distributor. Its competitor, Kansas City, Mo.-based Hallmark, is privately held.

Zev Weiss, 36, is an American Greetings executive vice president for AG Ventures and enterprise management. Jeff Weiss, 39, is executive vice president of the company’s North American greeting card division.

Computer: Hacker gains access to credit card numbers

A computer hacker gained access to more than 5.6 million Visa and MasterCard account numbers by breaching the security of a company that processes transactions for merchants, the card associations said Tuesday.

Visa USA spokesman Mike Riley said that there has been no report of fraudulent activity involving the accounts and that Visa was monitoring the situation.

Visa, which is based in Foster City, Calif., said that after learning of the incident, the company’s fraud team “immediately notified all affected card-issuing financial institutions and is working with the third-party payment card processor to protect against the threat of a future intrusion.” MasterCard Inc., which is based in Purchase, N.Y., said that affected banks had been notified.

Retail: Wal-Mart profits increase

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., boosted by strong sales at its international and flagship discount stores, reported a 16.3 percent increase in fourth-quarter profits, beating analysts’ expectations.

For the three months ending Jan. 31, Wal-Mart earned $2.53 billion, or 57 cents per share, compared with $2.19 billion, or 49 cents per share, a year earlier.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call forecast earnings of 56 cents per share.

Sales for the quarter were $71.07 billion, up 10.7 percent from $64.2 billion a year earlier.

Johnson County: Lawrence resident picked for chamber position

Lawrence resident Kate Michaelis has been chosen to become the vice president of economic development for the Northeast Johnson County Chamber of Commerce & Visitors Bureau.

Michaelis was a former economic development official with the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce until she resigned late last year.

In her new job, Michaelis will work on retaining and attracting businesses to the areas of Fairway, Merriam, Mission, Mission Woods, Prairie Village, north Overland Park and Roeland Park.

She will begin her job March 3.