If you were starting the company today, what would you do differently? 

Most companies don’t ask this question. They tweak, optimize and adjust—but they don’t rethink what will make them successful over the next decade. They assume what got them here will keep them going. But eventually, that stops working. 

That’s why companies need re-founders. Instead of just managing what exists, they rebuild from the lens of what the business can become leveraging the strengths of the company's core assets, culture and people. 

I wrote about this recently in my personal writing "The Re-Founder’s Mindset: How Great Companies Reinvent to Stay Ahead", looking at companies that reinvented themselves to stay ahead. Satya Nadella did this at Microsoft, refocusing the company on its core strengths while betting big on cloud and AI. Tim Cook stepped out of Steve Jobs’ shadow by making the tough calls on what to keep, what to change and what bold bets to make. More recently, Andy Jassy shifted Amazon from hyper-growth to a more disciplined, profitable model. 

Now, several months into my role as CEO, I see that MoneyGram is at a similar crossroads. 

MoneyGram’s re-founding moment 

The way people move and manage money is changing, and we have a rare opportunity to redefine our role in global payments. This isn’t about small improvements—it’s about rethinking everything from scratch. If we were building MoneyGram today, what would we do differently to make cross-border money movement affordable, accessible and secure for everyone? 

Over the past decade, geopolitical shifts, changing regulations and rapid advances in technology have reshaped what consumers and businesses expect from global payments. Systems that once gave companies an edge may no longer be enough to compete. Every part of the business from product, engineering, marketing, sales, finance, legal and compliance needs a fresh look. What’s the most direct way to serve customers? What’s getting in the way? 

The big question is to build on what made MoneyGram strong while having the courage to rethink what no longer serves us. We have the chance to make global payments instant, intelligent and more accessible than ever. Now it’s on us to execute. 

How MoneyGram is embracing the re-founder’s mindset

Re-founding is not just a mindset. It’s a commitment to making tough decisions, questioning old assumptions and mobilizing resources toward the right priorities for the future. 

At MoneyGram, we are doing exactly that. Here’s how: 

• Solving customer pain points faster and smarter
  • Josh Gordon-Blake, Luke Tuttle, Greg Hall and our Product, Engineering and Marketing teams are leading a shift in how we build, improve and market our products.
  • Instead of waiting for customers to tell us what’s broken, we are proactively enhancing features, fixing pain points and improving customer experiences before they become problems. They are also building systems to flag weak spots in the customer journey and fix them fast.
• Breaking traditional growth frameworks
  • Anna Greenwald recently shifted from COO to Chief Growth Officer, a newly created role designed to drive our next phase of expansion.
  • Instead of bringing in a traditional sales executive, we are backing a growth-oriented operational leader who thinks differently. Her focus isn’t just selling more—it’s building a scalable sales system that fuels growth, expands our reach and positions MoneyGram to lead.
• Eliminating bottlenecks and removing waste
  • Cory Feinberg and our Legal and Business Affairs team are redefining their role in simplifying internal approvals and reviews processes that used to slow us down.
  • They are optimizing contracts, eliminating inefficiencies and challenging outdated processes. The early results? Faster decisions, fewer roadblocks and a more agile organization.
• Rethinking hiring and culture
  • Jillian Slagter and the People team are transforming how we attract and grow talent.
  • Hiring used to be slow and expensive. Now, we’re streamlining the process to reduce time to hire, lower costs and improve quality. But hiring the right people is just the start. We’re also rethinking talent development so employees have the skills, mindset and opportunities to grow as the company scales. We are laying the foundation for a culture of speed, continuous learning and constant improvement.

Each of these efforts shares a common principle: obsessing over the customer. That means starting with their needs and working backward to build exactly what solves their problems. Sometimes we’ll need to adapt and learn new skills along the way.

And while I’m proud of our early progress, I know we’ll make mistakes. Some will be self-inflicted. Some will come from strong competitors. That’s how this works. Not every decision will pay off, but the ones that do will shape MoneyGram’s future.

Knowing what to preserve and what to change

One of MoneyGram’s greatest strengths—often overlooked—is our global payments network spanning approximately 450,000 retail locations and 5 billion digital endpoints. Few companies operate at this scale, and even fewer offer global cash access. This network is a strategic asset with immense untapped potential.

The hardest part of re-founding isn’t deciding what to change. It’s deciding what to keep.

Successful re-founders build on a company’s strengths while evolving what no longer works. They also set a higher standard for how the company operates moving forward. At MoneyGram, that means:

• Starting and ending with the customer
• Owning every decision
• Setting a higher bar
• Thinking long-term

This is what re-founding looks like in practice. 

That’s the mindset we’re building—one decision at a time.

MoneyGram Re-founder