Bob Hartheimer, Evolve Bank and Trust's new CEO, has been arrested on charges of sexual exploitation of a minor and distribution of obscene material, according to Shelby County records. He was escorted out of the bank's East Memphis, Tennessee, headquarters by FBI agents on Thursday morning and is scheduled to appear in federal court on Tuesday. The arrest was first reported by fintech consultant Jason Mikula in a
"We are aware of the situation," an Evolve spokesman said. "The board of directors is treating this matter with the utmost seriousness and Mr. Hartheimer has been terminated effective immediately."
The U.S. attorney's office has assured the bank that this is a personal matter and does not relate to the bank or its operations in any way, the spokesman said. "That said, we have offered our full cooperation as they investigate."
Evolve's President and Chief Financial Officer Mark Mosteller and Executive Vice President and General Counsel Joelle Weltzin will oversee Evolve's operations and strategic direction as they did prior to August, the spokesman said.
"Our team remains focused on serving customers, supporting employees and delivering on our business objectives," he said. "We remain confident in the strength of our leadership, the stability of our operations, and the continued trust of our customers and investors."
Hartheimer has spent most of his career in legal and regulatory compliance roles. He was director of the division of resolutions at the FDIC from 1991 to 1995. He worked at regulatory consulting firms Klaros Group and Promontory.
He began consulting with Evolve's board and teams in late 2024, to help them get out from under a June 2024 consent order imposed by the Federal Reserve and the Arkansas State Bank Department. He was named CEO in August.
"I've spent years working with regulators," Hartheimer told American Banker in an
The Evolve consent order focused mainly on risk management lapses of the bank's open banking (aka banking as a service) division and shortcomings in its anti-money-laundering Bank Secrecy Act compliance. A string of other banking-as-a-service banks have received similar consent orders over the past five years.
"We're going through changes in [open banking], like every other banking-as-a-service bank that is in that business," Hartheimer said. "We're improving our technology. We will come out in 2026, I think, as one of the leaders in our technology for fintech customers."
Evolve was the primary bank partner of
"The Synapse situation a year and a half ago really was a wake up call for all banking-as-a-service banks and for all regulators," Hartheimer said in the August interview. "This is not uncommon in the banking business, new ways of doing things occur, and then there's a catch-up on how those businesses need to be managed and overseen. So every baas bank is going through more rigorous compliance and risk changes and that's true here."
Evolve is working on better data management and transaction monitoring, among other things, he said.
"At Promontory, one of the lessons that I observed is when banks got in trouble and owned their troubles, fixed them, they went on to do really great things," Hartheimer said.
