Embattled lender Evolve Bank & Trust has named Bob Hartheimer CEO, effective immediately, following former CEO Scott Stafford’s retirement earlier this year

Hartheimer joins Evolve from financial regulatory consulting firm Klaros Group. He previously co-founded and served as chief regulatory and compliance officer at Jasper, a credit card originator; and served as a bank and fintech regulatory consultant on his own and at Promontory Financial Group from 2002 until 2008.

Earlier in his career, he created and ran the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s Division of Resolutions, where he led a small team overseeing the sale of more than 200 banks with approximately $50 billion in assets and 10 large failing banks with $39 billion in assets, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Sarah Bloom Raskin, who spent five years as Hartheimer’s colleague at Promontory, said she expects Evolve to “see improvement under his tenure” given his experience turning around and selling failing banks.

“Bob was selected for his unmatched corporate experience in strategically navigating challenges at financial institutions and enabling banks to move past their regulatory challenges,”  Evolve board Chairman Steve Valentine said in a prepared statement.

“He has the full backing of the Board to take decisive action, restore thoughtful innovation, and lead Evolve into a future defined by transparency and sustainable growth. This is a structural change, demonstrating our continued commitment to doing the hard work to earn back the trust of our customers, employees, regulators, and investors,” Valentine said.

Evolve has had a rocky couple of years. After it gained prominence as a fintech-friendly bank, several fintechs it partnered with – most notably Yotta, but also Juno and Casper – became unable to connect users to funds deposited in Evolve and a small handful of other banks.

Synapse, the middleware firm sitting between Evolve and the fintechs, had filed for bankruptcy. Millions in user funds were unaccounted for. Many users remain unable to access their funds more than a year later.

Two months after Synapse filed for bankruptcy in April 2024, the Federal Reserve hit Evolve with an enforcement action related to its third-party partnerships, which Hartheimer said it’s still working to address.

Last week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said it was preparing to file an adversary proceeding complaint against Synapse, alleging unfair acts or practices and failure to maintain adequate records of consumer funds.

“When you lose trust like [Evolve did], your reputation is damaged, and it's hard to build a good reputation. You need somebody who actually has the competence and the expertise,” Bloom Raskin said. “It's not a guarantee at all. It's hard work, but I can't think of anybody better to do it, frankly, than Bob Hartheimer. His background is quite suitable for what he has in front of him here.”

Hartheimer said Wednesday that he “believes” in Evolve’s potential and aims to grow Evolve “into something stronger and more resilient.”

Since he began working with Evolve as a consultant last year, Hartheimer said his focus has been to build trust with regulators, and to address what needs to be repaired per the consent order. 

Earlier in his career as a regulatory consultant, he shared with executives at struggling banks that “regulation 101 is trust – if an examiner asks you for something, you give it to him.”

“What I learned is that those banks [in which] the CEO, CFO, [or] head of risk understood the issues and fixed them, did really well,” Hartheimer said.

One example was PNC, he shared, which faced a flurry of regulatory scrutiny in 2002. Today, PNC – which has been leaning into the “boring” nature of banking following industry turbulence last year – is “a phenomenal bank,” he said.

“The examiners pushing banks in a direction they need to go can have great results,” he said. “I think that's what's going to happen here. I think we're going to come out of this rebuild of our open banking business with a very strong business, and that's part of the reason I want to be here.”

President and Chief Financial Officer Mark Mosteller, President of Open Banking Division Hank Word and General Counsel and Corporate Secretary Joelle Weltzin will report to Hartheimer, according to a press release.