The embattled prepaid card issuer Green Dot has officially split the roles of chairman and chief executive by naming a longtime payments industry executive as its new chairman.
The company said Monday that William I. Jacobs, a former senior executive at MasterCard International, has replaced founder Steve Streit as chairman. Streit remains Green Dot's CEO and a director of the company.
Green Dot announced last month that it was splitting the roles following a drawn-out proxy fight with one of its largest shareholders, Harvest Capital Strategies.
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Steve Streit retained his board seat Monday, but lost two allies, as a large shareholder indicated that it will continue pushing for his ouster.
May 23 -
Steve Streit founded the nation's largest prepaid card issuer and took it public during a long tenure as CEO. Now he's locked in a nasty fight to keep his job and defend his reputation.
May 13
Harvest, which owns about 9% of Green Dot's shares, had been seeking to oust Streit as chairman and CEO out of frustration with the company's performance. It also claimed that Streit had made misleading statements to shareholders. Harvest was unable to oust Streit, but it did succeed in having two of its director nominees elected to Green Dot's board at last month's annual meeting.
Jacobs, 74, is also the chairman of the payments processor Global Payments. He has been on that firm's board since 2002. Before that he served in various senior roles at MasterCard and several other companies.
"Bill has been a terrific addition to our board of directors," Streit said in a statement Monday. "As a long-tenured executive in the payments space and an experience board member, Bill brings significant operational and governance expertise to our company and its many stakeholders."
