ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — PSCU EVP and COO Tom Gandre has been placed at the helm as acting CEO of the CUSO, where he replaces outgoing CEO Mike Kelly, who has been dismissed by the board.
A statement today from the CUSO's board revealed that Kelly's dismissal was "effective immediately," with a search underway internally as well as throughout the CU movement for a permanent successor, a process that is expected to take six to nine months.
No explanation was given for Kelly's ouster, but he oversaw the CUSO during an era of tremendous change in the payments space, including the beginnings of the transfer to EMV and tokenization, a slew of large-scale data breaches in 2014, the rise of mobile banking, and more.
"Our board has every confidence in Tom's leadership, our executive team and our world-class employees," Mike Valentine chair of PSCU's board said in a statement. He went on to call the transition "an opportunity to assess how PSCU can make an even stronger impact and deepen our relationships with member credit unions — and ultimately their members."
Up to now, Gandre's role with PSCU has been about growth, business and operations activities at the CUSO, as well as leading PSCU's operations in card and member services, IT, product development, vendor management and more. Prior to joining the CUSO he was a senior vice president with First Data Corporation.
