In the continuing saga of Green Dot and corporate structure and C-suite level executives, the company said Monday that William I. Jacobs has been named chairman of the board, as the firm has separated the chairman and chief executive officer roles.
The latest announcement, reported The Wall Street Journal, is one that comes in the wake of a May 2016 vote by shareholders that kept current CEO Steven Streit in the corner office, though by relatively thin margins. The executive had in fact received 43.8 percent of the vote — and yet that was enough to maintain his position, having bested the candidate that had been championed by activist holder Jeffery Osher. As has been reported, Osher’s firm, Harvest Capital, had waged a very vocal campaign calling for the removal of all of Green Dot’s directors.
The Journal noted that Jacobs has also held the chairman role with Global Payments Inc., the payments processing firm, since this same time two years ago, and also maintains his role as the lead independent director at the firm for the past 14 years.
The carve out between the chairman and the CEO roles had been recommended by Glass Lewis, the proxy advisory firm. Glass did not support the removal of Streit from his roles at the firm. Green Dot had also said that it would name the independent chairman (which, as noted above, is Jacobs) after the voting that took place at the annual meeting last month.
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