Green Dot Taps Board Member to Head Banking Unit

Green Dot Corp. has tapped one of its board members, Mary Dent, to take the helm of its banking unit.

Dent succeeds Lewis Goodwin as chief executive of Green Dot Bank, an $818 million-asset institution based in Provo, Utah. Goodwin will stay on as president of the bank, the company said in a press release Wednesday.

Green Dot, with headquarters in Pasadena, Calif., is one of the country's leading issuers of prepaid cards. The firm purchased its Utah-based bank in 2011.

"Mary will be focused on generating greater revenue from the bank through various initiatives focused on monetizing its bank charter, its balance sheet and its deposit product and lending capabilities," Green Dot Corp. CEO Steve Streit said in the press release.

The company recently received regulatory approval to offer a secured credit card, the firm noted in its press release. "Green Dot Bank is such an important institution because it sits atop a fintech powerhouse holding company that potentially allows it to do things on a nationwide scale few other banks could do," Dent said.

Dent spent seven years as general counsel of SVB Financial Group, the holding company for Silicon Valley Bank. Most recently, she served as general counsel at San Francisco-based Insikt Inc. She joined Green Dot's board in 2013.

In connection with her appointment as CEO of Green Dot Bank, Dent stepped down from Green Dot Corp.'s board of directors, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Green Dot also said in the filing that it is reducing the size of its board from 10 members to nine.

The contraction follows the addition of two board seats in April 2016, when an activist shareholder was trying to elect its own slate of candidates. Two of those three candidates were elected in May, but Streit also retained his board seat.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
Credit cards Career moves Community banking Consumer banking Women in Banking
MORE FROM AMERICAN BANKER