Synchrony CEO Keane, Builder of Credit-Card Giant, to Step Down

Synchrony Financial said Margaret Keane, the company’s longtime leader who helped turn the firm into the largest U.S. provider of store credit cards and led its separation from General Electric Co., will step down.

For nearly two decades, Keane has shepherded the business, which can trace its history back to the Great Depression, when General Electric created the unit to help Americans finance purchases of air conditioners and washing machines. She took Synchrony public and built it into a card behemoth that counts companies such as PayPal Holdings Inc. among its biggest partners.

Keane got her start in ...