Fintech Focus — January 2022
A curated selection of hires and promotions from across crypto and fintech. If you would like to sign up to receive this newsletter, please visit our website.
What We’re Following
We’re thirty-one days into the new year and it’s safe to say your portfolio is shedding numbers faster than your scale📉. Think of it like a new season of The Biggest Loser🏋️♂️, but with tech stocks and crypto.
In happier news, funding for fintech and crypto startups hasn’t slowed down in the slightest🏃♀️. From Bolt and Brex to OpenSea and Fireblocks — these valuations must have a supporting role in Tom Cruise’s next movie, because they are out of this world👨🚀 (seriously though, he’s filming in outer space🛸). Tom, if you’re still taking movie ideas, we’d like to submit an intergalactic interpretation of “The Mob Bosses of Silicon Valley.” If Twitter is any indication, I think we have a major hit on our hands (soft hands only✋, of course).
🍱To feed the hungry bellies of Silicon Valley mob bosses and crypto degens alike, a new restaurant will be opening up in Manhattan that features a “seafood-inspired” line-up and NFT reservation system. Sadly, Meat Loaf will not be making an appearance on the menu (#RIP).
Further supporting the ‘Crypto Plan for World Domination’ (thank you Asymetric🙏), we’d like to formally request that stablecoins replace bonds in the traditional 60/40 allocation. Our money (and apparently everyone else’s) is on USDC, but we’ll take anything that’s not Libra♎️ — or should we say Diem? You know, the stablecoin that Facebook is currently unwinding — or should we say Meta? It feels like there’s a pattern here…🤔
As our boy William would say, “crypto by any other name would smell as sweet.” 🌹 Jack Dorsey certainly took those words to heart, so we won’t judge Zuck too harshly.
Though you won’t be catching us in Verona anytime soon, we certainly have a packed social calendar going into the next few months, courtesy of our friends at This Week in Fintech. 🌍Whether in Austin (2/10), Boston (2/17), Nairobi (2/23) or Miami (2/24) — stop by and raise a glass to your second favorite newsletter author for launching his own fund🍻!
🧃 Cheers to the end of #dryjanuary,
Blake, Catherine, Elizabeth, Ethan, Hugh, Kali, Kelsey & Scott
Who We’re Following
a16z: Kim Milosevich re-joined as Chief Marketing Officer of Crypto. Kim was previously the VP of Communications at Coinbase. Link
Anchorage: Rachel Anderika joined as Bank Chief Risk Officer. Rachel was previously the Head of Risk Governance Oversight at Silicon Valley Bank. Link
B Capital Group: Matt Levinson joined as a Partner. Matt was previously a Principal at Fintech Collective. Link
Bill.com: Germaine Cota joined as SVP, Finance & Accounting. Germaine was previously the Chief Accounting Officer and Treasurer at 8x8. Link
BitMEX: Marcus Hughes joined as Chief Risk Officer. Marcus was previously a Managing Director, Europe and General Counsel, International at Coinbase. Link
Blockchain.com: Tom Horton joined as a Board Member. Tom is the former Chairman and CEO of American Airlines. Link Marcie Vu also joined as a Board Member. Marcie is a Partner and Head of Consumer Technology at Qatalyst Partners. Link
BlockFi: Deb Barta joined as Chief Operating Officer. Deb was previously an SVP of Provenance and Strategy at Mastercard. Link
Bolt: Meg Ciarallo joined as VP of Brand and Consumer Marketing. Meg was previously the VP of Marketing at Tally. Link
Brex: Karandeep Anand joined as Chief Product Officer. Karandeep was previously a VP and Head of Business Products at Meta (Facebook). Link
Circle: Sherice Torres joined as Chief Marketing Officer. Sherice was previously the CMO of Novi at Meta. Link We’re grateful for the continued partnership of Elisabeth Carpenter and Jeremy Allaire on this assignment.
Coinbase: Nana Murugesan joined as VP of International and Business Development. Nana was previously an MD of International Markets and Mobile Partnerships at Snap Inc. Link Richard Ahrens joined as VP of Engineering. Richard was previously the SVP and CIO of Global Markets, Enterprise Risk and Compliance at StateStreet. Link Thaya Knight joined as Senior Public Policy Manager, Capital Markets Regulatory Affairs. Thaya was previously Counsel to the Commissioner Elad L. Roisman. Link Tobias Lütke joined as a Board Member. Tobias is currently the CEO of Shopify. Link Brian Rocha joined as Head of Coinbase Content Strategy. Brian was previously a Director of Content Strategy & Analysis at Netflix. Link
CoinTracker: Gaurav Garg joined as the Head of Engineering. Gaurav was previously a VP of Engineering at Uber. Link Zack Reneau-Wedeen joined as a Product Lead. Zack was previously the Head of Product, Crypto at Robinhood.
Compound Labs: Reid Cuming joined as VP and GM of Compound Treasury. Reid was previously the Head of Product, KYC/Identity, Access Management, Risk, Login, and Authentication at Chime. Link
Crypto.com: Justin Wales joined as Head of Legal for North America. Justin was previously a Partner at K&L Gates. Link
Crypto Council for Innovation: Sheila Warren joined as Chief Executive Officer. Sheila was previously the Head of Data, Blockchain and Digital Assets and an Executive Committee Member at the World Economic Forum. Link
Divvy Homes: John Lee joined as Chief Operating Officer. John was previously a Managing Director, Private Equity at Blackstone. Lucia Franzese was promoted to Chief Revenue Officer. Lucia was previously a VP of Sales and Marketing. Shirley Lin was promoted to Chief Product Officer. Shirley was previously a VP of Product. Link
Earnin: Ofer Shaked joined as Chief Technology Officer. Ofer was previously a VP of Engineering, Data at Intuit. Link
Equideum Health: Debbie Bucci was promoted to Chief Data Officer of the ConsenSys Mesh portfolio company. Debbie was previously the Director, Patient-Mediated and Institutional Data Exchange. Link
Even Financial: Andrew Naoum joined as SVP of Sales & Business Development. Andrew was previously a VP of Business Development at EvolutionIQ. Link
Exodus: Veronica McGregor joined as Chief Legal Officer. Veronica was previously the CLO at ShapeShift.io.
FalconX: Suzy Walther joined as Head of People. Suzy was previously the CPO at Carta.
Galaxy Digital: William Burt joined as Chief Operating Officer of the asset management business. William was previously a Managing Director at the Blackstone Group. Link
Gemini: Pravjit Tiwana joined as Chief Technology Officer. Pravjit was previously the GM of AWS Edge Services at Amazon. Link
Google: Arnold Goldberg joined to run the payments division. Arnold was previously an SVP and Chief Product Architect at PayPal. Link
Gusto: Mike Taylor joined as Chief Financial Officer. Mike was previously the CFO at GitHub. Link
Haven Ventures: Joe Guzel co-founded a fintech fund. Joe was previously a Principal at Crosslink Capital. Link
Jump Crypto: Nathan Roth joined as Chief Marketing Officer. Nathan was previously the CMO at Hinge. Link Mike Porcaro joined as Head of Marketing, Special Projects. Mike was previously the Head of Marketing and Communications at MakerDAO. We are thrilled to have partnered with Kisha Shah Mani and Kanav Kariya on this assignment.
KRH: Chris Lehane joined as Chief Strategy Officer for Katie Haun’s newly-launched crypto fund. Chris was previously the SVP of Policy & Communications at Airbnb. Link Rachael Horwitz joined as Chief Marketing Officer. Rachael was previously an Operating Partner at a16z. Link
LendingTree: Shiv Singh joined as Chief Marketing & Customer Experience Officer. Shiv was previously the SVP & GM of Brand Expedia at The Expedia Group. Link
Lithic: Clarissa Horowitz joined as Head of Marketing. Clarissa was previously a VP of Marketing at Treasury Prime. Lin
Marqeta: Susaina Lobo joined as Chief HR/People Officer. Susaina was previously the SVP and CPO at Navis. Link
Meritech Capital: Ashley Paston joined as a Partner. Ashley was previously a Principal at Bain Capital Ventures. Link
MX: Shane Evans was promoted to Interim CEO and President. Shane was previously the President at MX.
Next Insurance: Teodora Gouneva joined as Chief Financial Officer. Teodora was previously VP of Finance, Homes and Experience at Airbnb. Link
Nium: Robin Gandhi joined as Chief Product Officer. Robin previously led the product, engineering, design and operations efforts at TripActions. Link
OpenSea: Jeremy Fine joined as Head of Corporate Development. Jeremy was previously a Director of Corporate Development at Uber. Link
Oscar Health: Ranmali Bopitiya joined as Chief Legal Officer. Ranmali was previously the Chief Legal Officer at Everside Health. Link
Paxos: Ben Gray joined as Global Chief Compliance Officer and Deputy General Counsel. Ben was previously the Global Chief Compliance Officer and Deputy General Counsel at Square. Link
Robinhood: Steve Quirk joined as Chief Brokerage Officer. Steve was previously an EVP of Trading at TDAmeritrade. Link
Toast: Ritika Butani joined as Head of Corporate Development. Ritika was previously a Corporate Development Lead (Seller, Hardware, TBD, Tidal) at Square. Link
Tradeshift: Marissa Mattson joined as Chief People Officer. Marissa was previously an HR Director, AWS Global Infrastructure and Customer Support at Amazon. Link
Unit: Alex Acree joined as Chief Legal Officer. Alex was previously a Partner at Mitchell Sandler LLC. Link
Wealthsimple: Anne Pham joined as VP of Corporate Development. Anne was previously the Head of Corporate Strategy at Stripe.
Zillow: Jenny Arden joined as Chief Design Officer. Jenny was previously a VP of Digital Design at Nike. Link
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