NEW YORK, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Activist investor Impactive

Capital has selected a handful of director candidates with

experience in banking and payments to serve on financial

technology company WEX's board, signaling its intent to

push ahead with a planned proxy fight.

Impactive, which owns 6.4% of WEX, signed up four industry

executives to serve on its slate, two people familiar with the

matter said. Impactive co-founder Lauren Taylor Wolfe may also

stand as a director candidate, taking the number of total

candidates to five, said the sources, who are not permitted to

discuss the private agreements publicly.

The selection of directors - long before the window to

nominate candidates opens next year - underscores ongoing

tension between the two sides. Impactive said in May, just two

days after WEX's annual meeting, that it intends to run a proxy

fight. WEX is valued at roughly $5 billion and its shares have

fallen 13% since January.

"We have a history of constructive engagement with Impactive and

we welcome feedback from all our shareholders," a WEX

representative said.

This would be only the second time in Impactive's eight-year

history that the firm has nominated directors to a board. It

settled its fight with financial technology company Envestnet in

2023 when the company added three directors to the board,

including Taylor Wolfe.

For WEX, Impactive selected Ellen Alemany, vice chair of

First Citizens Bank, Ken Cornick, co-founder of airport security

company CLEAR, Jim Fox, former interim CEO and current board

chair of Envestnet and fintech investor Kush Saxena who is a

former CEO of Getnet and was a former chief strategy officer of

Mastercard.

Taylor Wolfe is scheduled to speak at Tuesday's 13D Monitor

Active-Passive Investment Summit in New York where investors

will present their best investment ideas and present updates to

existing activist campaigns.