MoneyGram, the money transfer giant, has replaced its CEO less than a month after the company confirmed that hackers had stolen large amounts of customers' personal information and transaction records in a data breach.
MoneyGram announced in a statement Monday that it has appointed Anthony Sufu as its chief executive officer, effective immediately. Sufu succeeds Alex Holmes, who joined MoneyGram in 2009 and served as chief financial officer and then chief operating officer, and was named CEO and chairman in 2016.
Holmes will remain as an advisor to the company's board of directors, the company said in a statement.
In an interview with TechCrunch, MoneyGram spokesperson Sidney Schoolfield said: “This announcement is unrelated to recent cyber issues. This leadership change is the result of a months-long process led by the MoneyGram Board of Directors.”
Mr. Holmes' firing came the same month that the company confirmed that an unspecified number of individual customer information had been lost in a September cyberattack. The company has not yet explained the nature of the cyberattack that resulted in a week-long outage of its money transfer service. The UK's data protection authority has confirmed that it has received a data breach report from MoneyGram following a cyber attack.
MoneyGram previously said the stolen data included names, phone numbers, postal and email addresses, dates of birth, and national identification numbers. MoneyGram said the data breach also included a “limited number” of Social Security numbers, government identification documents such as driver's licenses and utility bills, and bank account numbers.
MoneyGram also said the stolen data included information about customer transactions, including the dates and amounts of transfers, as well as information about criminal investigations related to some customer accounts.
MoneyGram says it serves more than 50 million people in more than 200 countries and territories each year. Holmes earned $6.7 million in executive compensation in 2021, according to company regulatory filings. MoneyGram did not provide updated figures for Holmes' executive compensation in response to questions.