Bay Point, CA 94565

September 21, 2016

Corporation Secretary 

American Express Company

200 Vesey Street, 50th Floor

New York, NY 10285

Via mail and corporatesecretarysoffice@aexp.com

Re: Shareholder Proposal on CEO’s Side Job

Dear Corporation Secretary:

Enclosed please find my shareholder proposal for inclusion in our proxy materials for the 2017 annual meeting of shareholders and a letter confirming my American Express shares.  I will continuously hold these shares through and until the 2017 annual meeting.

I would like to suggest you have an email account to receive shareholder proposals, as many companies and the SEC do.

Should you have any questions, please contact me at zhao.cpri@gmail.com or 925-643-xxxx.

Yours truly,

    Jing Zhao

Enclosure: Shareholder proposal

Letter of shares

Shareholder Proposal on CEO’s Side Job

Resolved:  Shareholders recommend that American Express Company request the CEO not to serve other companies with payment. This policy should also apply to other Named Executive Officers.

Supporting Statement

Our CEO has been paid first-rate: $21,837,420 in 2013, $22,796,083 in 2014 and $21,988,091 in 2015, while he also received payments from International Business Machines Corporation and The Procter & Gamble Company. 

After the bad case of Google’s CEO serving Apple’s Board of Directors years ago, no first-rate company CEO serves other companies with payment.  Only third-rate companies, such as Yahoo, let their CEOs serve other companies with payment.  Yahoo CEOs have taken side jobs but have not performed their main duty faithfully.  For example, US-Japan-China Comparative Policy Research Institute’s Corporate Social Responsibility Review http://cpri.tripod.com/cpr2016/csrr5.pdf rated Yahoo the lowest “F” with detailed documents since 2007, including some recently published coverage regarding the Yahoo Human Rights Fund (YHRF) and Yahoo’s agent Harry Wu: 

1) The Statement by Seven Former Chinese Political Prisoners Regarding the Death of Harry Wu and the Abuses of the Yahoo Human Rights Fund https://chinachange.org/2016/04/28/statement-by-seven-former-chinese-political-prisoners-regarding-the-death-of-harry-wu-and-the-abuses-of-the-yahoo-human-rights-fund/ (April 28, 2016): “of the approximately $14-15 million of the YHRF that has been spent from 2008 to 2015, only about $700,000 was used to provide humanitarian aid to Chinese dissidents.”  

2) The Complicated and Contradictory Legacy of Harry Wu https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/25/the-complicated-and-contradictory-life-of-harry-wu-china-yahoo/ (Foreign Policy Report May 25, 2016): “he was ready to break rules or even laws.” 

3) Gadflies at the Gate: Why Do Individual Investors Sponsor Shareholder Resolutions? http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/gadflies-gate-why-do-individual-investors-sponsor-shareholder (Stanford Business School, August 2016) introduced my proposal at the 2011 Yahoo shareholders meeting: “Finally, one investor succeeded in compelling Yahoo to include his proposal on human rights violations following five years of rejection.” My proposal mentioned: “Yahoo Human Rights Fund has been politically abused.”

4) Champion of Human Rights in China Leaves a Tarnished Legacy http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/us/champion-of-human-rights-in-china-leaves-a-tarnished-legacy.html (New York Times August 13, 2016): “He……spending more than $13 million of the Yahoo money to operate his own foundation.”  “In some years, financial disclosure forms show that the foundation spent less than 2 percent of annual disbursements on direct assistance to Chinese dissidents or their families; in recent years, such grants all but dried up.”