Truist Financial continued its managerial overhaul this month with appointments to fill the new chief operating officer position as well as chief consumer and small business banking officer and chief wholesale banking officer. 

The $535 billion bank made the following changes:      

• Vice Chair Beau Cummins became COO effective Nov. 14; 
• Donta Wilson was named chief consumer and small business banking officer; and 
• Kristin Lesher appointed as chief wholesale banking officer. 

Cummins now adds COO to his title of vice chair, he oversees commercial real estate, investment banking and the payments business, according to a company release. In his new role, Cummins will be tasked with revamping Truist’s payments, operations and enterprise strategies. 

Before being named to his new position, Wilson had been head for retail and small business banking at the bank and served as chief digital and client experience officer, according to his LinkedIn profile. In his new role, Wilson will be responsible for the consumer and small business segments, including improving client experience through mobile and online banking, according to the release. 

Lesher joined the bank from Wells Fargo, where she was executive vice president and head of commercial banking coverage, according to the Truist release. She will join Truist in February. 

The changes follow last month’s shakeup at the bank, when technology leadership, including Ken Meyer, former chief information and experience officer, left the bank. In October, Truist also folded its Foundry Unit, a digital venture capital arm focused on consumer experience, as reported by Bank Automation News. 

Green Dot appoints Harden CTO

Digital bank Green Dot named Dave Harden as its chief technology officer on Nov. 16.  

Harden is moving up from his role as Green Dots’ senior vice president of product development, according to a Green Dot release.  

His experience in product and migrating the bank’s card management to the cloud have prepared him to work with Green Dot’s bank clients, according to the release. 

“As the demand for digital banking and embedded finance continues, Green Dot will be well-positioned to serve and enable more consumers, both directly and through our valued partners, and achieve scalable long-term growth,” Director, President and Chief Executive George Gresham said in the release. “Dave’s appointment marks an important milestone in our path toward becoming a more streamlined and powerful team and platform.” 

Green Dot partners include Apple, Intuit, Walmart and Amazon, according to the Green Dot website. 

Treasury Prime names Olinger VP of products

Embedded banking software company Treasury Prime hired Ann Olinger as the vice president of product in October.  

Olinger, who joins Treasury Prime from Global Payments, is responsible for product strategy and growth, according to a recent bank release. 

She will focus on “creating new Treasury Prime offerings that enable companies to interface with the U.S. banking system,” she told BAN, adding that gen AI is also a priority. 

“Her expertise in scaling SaaS products and teams will be instrumental in driving growth and expansion within our organization,” a Treasury Prime spokesperson told BAN. 

In the short term, Olinger and her team are tasked with growing Treasury Prime’s existing products, as she builds out the company’s open banking operations, the spokesperson said. 

Joshi to head embedded finance at Funding Circle

Online lender Funding Circle has appointed Kaustubh (Kos) Joshi as its new head of embedded finance and partnership for United States operations, according to the company’s Nov. 6 release. 

Joshi joins Funding Circle from Goldman Sachs, where he built and scaled the financial institution’s embedded seller financing business, Ryan Metcalf, head of public affairs at Funding Circle, told BAN. “He brings in unique experience in leveraging embedded relationships to use alternative data from partners to better identify and underwrite the customers.” 

Joshi will manage existing clients and create products to gain customers from embedded finance structures, Metcalf said.  

He has seen many changes in his years in the industry, including “digitization, new form factors, changing regulatory landscape [but] the fundamental need of small business owners for affordable financing has not changed and has not been fully addressed,” Joshi told BAN. “Embedded financing offers a simpler and faster financing experience to the businesses through platforms they already know and trust.” 

Q2 appoints 3 new execs

Publicly traded digital banking and lending company Q2 has appointed three executives to accelerate growth, Kirk Coleman, president of Q2, told BAN.  

The $2 billion company hired Himagiri Mukkamala as its new chief development officer, Beth-Anne Bygum as chief information security officer and Blair Williams as chief risk officer, according to the company’s Nov. 13 release. 

The Austin, Texas-based company is expanding its team as demand for its digital banking products grows, Coleman said. 

Financial institutions have “doubled down on their digital strategy for multiple reasons,” he said. “One is that they want to give users a great digital experience … [and] they want to continue to drive efficiency inside their organizations.” 

FIs are also looking toward digital banking channels to drive deposits which have been “scarce to come by this year,” making FIs to come up with new digital tools to gain deposits, Coleman said.  

Mukkamala, who served as general manager of Penguin Edge and Chief Executive of Pelion, will be responsible for creating products and communicating with the customers, according to the release. 

Bygum was brought on to strengthen Q2’s cybersecurity, Coleman said. According to LinkedIn, she has experience in security and compliance from Acxiom and McKesson. 

Lastly, Williams, who will serve as Q2’s inaugural chief risk officer, joined Q2 from SS&C Technologies where he led the enterprise risk team, technology services group and data center team, according to the release. 

Financial institutions like Hanmi Bank, Lake City Bank and Axos Bank are some of Q2’s customers, according to the company’s website.  

Saidin steps up to CEO at Tassat

B2B blockchain technology-based payments company Tassat appointed Zain Saidin as its new CEO, according to a Nov. 8 release. 

Saidin had been Tassat’s chief operating officer, according to Saidin’s LinkedIn profile.  

“In the short-term, we plan to increase the adoption of TassatPay and expand our suite of use cases into new verticals, such as asset management, capital markets, and healthcare,” Saidin told BAN. In the long term, “I’m focused on continuing to position Tassat as an industry leader for financial institutions seeking to offer robust, real-time solutions to their corporate clients while also enhancing security and reducing costs.”  

“Zain has a strong leadership background and a proven track record of successfully executing strategic initiatives at Tassat,” a Tassat spokesperson said. “Since joining the company as chief operating officer in February 2023, Zain has played an instrumental role in overseeing the launch of new product offerings like multi-currency functionality and fund management solutions on the TassatPay platform.” 

Tassat is looking to expand its user base of banks and other financial institutions into new verticals by building new product offerings with those financial institutions, Saidin told BAN. 

Since 2019, Tassat has processed over $1.4 trillion in payments, the company spokesperson told BAN. 

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