MoneyGram replaces CEO weeks after massive customer data breach

Money transfer giant MoneyGram has replaced its chief executive less than a month after confirming that hackers stole reams of customers’ personal information and transaction records in a data breach.

In a statement Monday, MoneyGram said it appointed Anthony Soohoo as the company’s chief executive with immediate effect. Soohoo replaces Alex Holmes, who joined MoneyGram in 2009 and served as its chief financial officer then chief operating officer, before being appointed CEO and chairman in 2016.

Holmes will remain on as an advisor to the company’s board of directors, the company’s statement said. 

When reached by TechCrunch, MoneyGram spokesperson Sydney Schoolfield said: “This announcement is not related to the recent cyber issue. The leadership transition is the result of a several-months long process led by the MoneyGram Board of Directors.”

Holmes’ removal comes in the same month that the company confirmed it had lost an unspecified amount of personal customer information during its September cyberattack. The company has yet to describe the nature of the cyberattack, which sparked in a week-long outage of its money transfer service. The U.K.’s data protection authority confirmed it had received a data breach report from MoneyGram following the cyberattack.

MoneyGram previously said the stolen data includes 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 and government identification documents, including driver’s licenses and utility bills, and bank account numbers. 

MoneyGram also said the stolen data also includes information about customer transactions, such as dates and amounts of money transfers, and information about criminal investigation related to some customer accounts.

MoneyGram says it serves over 50 million people in more than 200 countries and territories each year. Holmes made $6.7 million in executive compensation during 2021, per a company filing with regulators. When asked, MoneyGram did not provide a more recent figure for Holmes’ executive compensation.