Bakkt names new CFO in stablecoin growth push

Dive Brief:

Payment company Bakkt Inc. named Matt White, most recently CFO for CoreCard Technologies, as its new finance chief effective Monday as the company looks to foster new growth as part of an ongoing strategic pivot, according to a press release and securities filing.
White succeeds Karen Alexander as Bakkt’s CFO, who stepped down from her role Aug. 14, according to the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. An alum of GE Capital, Alexander has served as the Atlanta, Georgia-based Bakkt’s finance chief since August 2022 and previously served as its chief accounting officer, according to her LinkedIn profile.
White brings “exactly the profile we want in a CFO for the next phase of Bakkt,” CEO Akshay Naheta said in a statement included in the Monday release. “He combines deep public company discipline with technology and payments experience, strategic thinking and an execution-oriented approach to finance. As Bakkt becomes an increasingly global and technology-driven company, the CFO function must evolve with it.”

Dive Insight:

Alexander will serve as an advisor to the company’s general counsel and CFO to facilitate a smooth transition until Dec. 31, according to the SEC filing. She will receive consulting fees at an annualized rate of $400,000, subject to her continued service in the advisory role, according to the filing.

Pursuant to her transition agreement with the company, Alexander will also receive payment “equal to 2% of the amounts actually recovered by the Company in connection with the Specified Arbitration” included in the agreement, with a maximum payment of $160,000, according to the filing. She will also receive a cash payment of $200,000 “in exchange for the forfeiture and cancellation of all of Ms. Alexander’s otherwise unvested equity awards, including all of her unexercised stock options,” other than two stock options tranches which will remain outstanding, the SEC filing notes.

A certified public accountant, White joined Bakkt after seven years as CFO for payments technology company CoreCard, according to his LinkedIn profile. Before CoreCard, he served a three-year tenure at credit bureau Equifax in roles including senior director and manager of accounting. His past roles also include a stint as manager of accounting policy for Humana, and six years as an auditor for Deloitte & Touche.

In association with his appointment as CFO, White will receive an annual base salary of $300,000 and will be eligible to receive an annual discretionary bonus of an undisclosed value, according to the SEC filing. White will also receive a one-time grant of 90,000 restricted stock units and 60,000 options to purchase shares of Bakkt’s Class A stock, with an exercise price of $10 per share, according to the filing.

White’s appointment comes as the company targets global growth amid an ongoing pivot from a crypto trading and loyalty platform to a stablecoin infrastructure provider. Last year, Bakkt sold both its loyalty and custody businesses as part of a bid to simplify its offerings and refocus on payment infrastructure, according to company releases and filings.

In association with its strategic pivot, the company has also taken several steps to expand its offerings to other global markets, becoming the majority shareholder for Japanese Entity MarushoHotta Co. and investing about $9.4 million in Indian company Transchem Limited.

It also completed its acquisition of Distributed Technologies Research, a stablecoin infrastructure and “agentic payments” company founded by its CEO Naheta, in April. The acquisition, first announced in January, follows a cooperation agreement between the two companies inked last March, when Naheta was named co-CEO alongside Andrew Main, according to an SEC filing at the time.

The company has made “material progress” toward its goal of becoming an infrastructure company for stablecoin and digital tokens, Alexander said during Bakkt’s most recent earnings call on Aug. 10.

“We enter the second half with a stronger platform, clear commercial momentum and substantial room to scale,” Alexander said according to a transcript.

Bakkt delivered net income of nearly $81 million for the quarter ended June 30, compared with a net loss of about $15 million in the prior year period. Revenue for its second quarter, however, reached about $170 million — plummeting 70% from the $568 million reported in the prior year period, according to its earnings report.