Fintech Focus — June 2019

Every month we share a curated selection of people moves in fintech. If your colleagues or friends would like to subscribe to our newsletter, we’ve included a subscribe link here, or they can visit our website.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is hovering around the $12,000 mark. Memories of the bleak, year-long “crypto winter” (as well as Charlie Munger and Jamie Dimon’s dire warnings about BTC) are fading. And with this market effervescence comes a corresponding level of candidate interest in the space.

Six months ago, recruiting leadership to companies in the crypto space was highly challenging. As the asset class floundered, we needed to identify candidates with a deep, sincere conviction about the transformative effect of the underlying technology. Over the past month or two, sentiment has shifted dramatically as many risk, compliance, finance and operations professionals now view the crypto space as here to stay.

At Intersection, our diligence on crypto candidates includes separating the authentically interested from the crypto-tourists shuffling onto the end of the conga line. Because our friends at firms like Gemini, Anchorage, Andreessen Horowitz and Coinbase deserve colleagues with grit and passion who’ll drive through market cycles and further swings in sentiment.

We couldn’t be more excited to be involved.

Select Leadership Moves

June 2019

• Andreessen Horowitz: Alex Immerman joined a16z as a Partner for the late stage venture fund. Alex was previously Business Lead at Facebook. Sarah Wang also joined a16z as a Partner for the late stage venture fund. Sarah was previously Vice President at TA Associates. Link
• BlueVine: Gianna Driver joined Bluevine as the company’s first Chief People Officer. Gianna was previously the Chief People Officer at Play Studios. Link
• Brex: Mira Srinivasan joined Brex as Head of Credit. Mira was previously Vice President of Commercial Underwriting at American Express.
• C2FO: Ashish Jain joined C2FO as Head of Capital Markets. Ashish was previously Senior Vice President of Capital Markets at SoFi. Link
• Carta: Frank Lennox joined Carta as Chief Compliance Officer, Brokerage & Markets. Frank was previously Chief Compliance Officer at IEX Group.
• Cross River Bank: Noah Cooper joined Cross River Bank as Senior Vice President, Head of Capital Markets. Noah was previously Senior Vice President of Capital Markets at Laurel Road Bank. Rahul Jha, Joshua Karlgaard and Ryan Callahan, also joined Noah at Cross River Bank. Link
• Galaxy Digital: Tim Plakas joined Galaxy Digital to develop the company’s over-the-counter trading efforts. Tim was previously the head of over-the-counter trading at Coinbase. Link
• LendingClub: Alexandra Shapiro joined LendingClub as Chief Marketing Officer. Alexandra was previously Chief Marketing Officer at Intercom. Link
• Nuveen: Wendy Harrington joined Nuveen as Head of Nuveen Labs. Wendy was previously the Chief Marketing Officer at Figure.
• Oak HC/FT: Allen Miller joined Oak HC/FT as a Principal focused on early-stage venture and growth equity opportunities in fintech. Allen was previously an investor at Matrix Partners. Link. Michael Vaughan also joined Oak HC/FT as the Executive in Residence focused on developing and advising fintech businesses. Michael was previously the Chief Operating Officer at Venmo. Link
• PayPal: Bill Ready, PayPal's Chief Operating Officer, announced he will be leaving the company at the end of 2019. Link
• Paxos: Daniel Bursetin was promoted from Interim Chief Compliance Officer to General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer at Paxos. Link
• Plaid: William Hockey, Plaid's Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, announced he will be leaving the company at the end of June. Link
• Ripple: Michelle Bond joined Ripple as Global Head of Government Relations. Michelle was previously the Global Head of Policy at Blockchain. Link
• Robinhood: Sylvie Brillaud joined Robinhood as Chief Compliance Officer & BSA Officer. Sylvie was previously Chief Compliance Officer at LendingClub. Michelle Piwowarski also joined the compliance team at Robinhood. Michelle was previously Global Compliance Manager at Google. Additionally, Gretchen Howard was promoted from Vice President, Operations to Chief Operating Officer. Link
• Royal Bank of Scotland: Marieke Flament joined RBS as Chief Executive Officer of Mettle. Marieke was previously the Chief Marketing Officer at Circle. Link
• Square: Steve Lee joined Square as the company’s first hire for its new crypto team. Steve was previously a Director at Google. Link

What We're Following

• Libra white paper: The self-proclaimed who, what, where, when and whys of Libra. Link
• Economist article: Facebook expands from our phones to our pockets. Link
• NY Times article: Doubts about Libra? You’re not alone. Regulators and Libra partners are skeptical too. Link
• Secrets of Sand Hill Road by Scott Kupor: Andreessen Horowitz’s Managing Partner, Scott Kupor, shares how to turn your startup into the next unicorn. Link
• Politico article: Research shows we are 79 times more likely to hire a woman and 194 times more likely to hire a person of color when the finalist pool includes more than one woman or minority. Link

Our best for a great July 4th holiday!
Scott, Hugh and Elizabeth

Intersection Growth Partners is a retained executive search firm that builds the leadership teams transforming financial services. Our clients include challenger fintechs, global financial institutions, and leading investors in the space.