Pros
Amex is a great company. They aim to be the World's most respected service Brand. At Amex, it is all about service and most employees are that way, especially customer care professionals on the phones. I like working at Amex because I can connect with the idea of serving individual people and small businesses. I love the new and innovative ways we as a company are trying to do that. Some other things I like: BlueWork - The ability as a manager to work virtually when needed. This has been very valuable as we had a new baby in our family recently and I have been able to home to help out and work later in the evening after the kids have gone to bed. Challenge - Amex expects you to be thinking in new ways and improve on what is currently being done. They recognize and reward discretionary effort.
Cons
NYC is very centralized for a global company. NYC is the Headquarters and that is still quite evident. Amex is working on becoming more global, but as it currently stands, most divisions are 50% US and 50% international. If you want to move up in HR, the feeling is, you have to be in NYC. Also, others have cited poor productivity tools as a con for Amex and last year I totally agreed. I honestly wouldn't have stayed with Amex after interning with them knowing I would have to use Lotus Notes, had I not heard the plan to move to Outlook. Amex is finally rolling out new tools including Exchange/Outlook (this month) and Sharepoint in a couple of months from now.