Welcome to Meet MELD
This is a series to provide some insight and understanding to the faces behind the MELD team. We have a vast range of engineers, designers, economists, advisors, and researchers from all parts of the world including Norway, Sweden, Vietnam, Japan, Canada, and with more partnerships, new team members, and advisors joining the MELD team, this list just keeps on expanding and getting better!
Continue reading to find out about Christian’s role with MELD…
MELD is delighted to announce the addition of Christian Katz to the MELD Advisory Board!
Christian joined MELD back in July, coming from 20+ years of experience within the banking & financial services sectors exercising roles as Vice President at J.P. Morgan, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs, CEO at the SIX Swiss Exchange, and is a board member with multiple firms. Christian brings an array of critical insight and knowledge to MELD in conjunction with financial institutions and blockchain in cross-border markets.
Background
From 1993 to 1997, Mr. Katz worked as an investment banker in the field of Institutional Equities & Derivatives Sales, ECM, Credit Risk Management at SBC Warburg in Zürich and Hongkong. From 1997 to 1998, he served as a Senior Manager for the London Forfaiting Company PLC, the world’s leading trade debt and credit trading company in London and Hongkong. From 1998 to 2006, Mr. Katz held the Position of Vice President, Head of Research Marketing Europe for Equities, Bonds, and Derivates at JP Morgan in London.
After relocating to Switzerland in 2006, he was Managing Director at Goldman Sachs International, where he ran the representative office in Switzerland and ran the institutional sales team. From 2009 to 2015, Mr. Katz served as CEO of SIX Swiss Exchange and Member of the SIX Group Executive Board, Switzerland’s integrated exchange and infrastructure group. During this time, he also served as Vice Chairman of STOXX and Scoach as well as Board Member and later President of the Federation of European Securities Exchanges in Brussels, Belgium.
In 2015, Mr. Katz became Vice Chairman of the Board of Saxo Bank, Zürich, Switzerland. Since 2016, he is Founder, Chairman, and Managing Partner at MainStrait, Zürich, a finance and fintech-focused consulting firm. From 2016 to 2018, he was a Board Member at XTP. Since 2017, he is a Board Member at the Banque Bonhote, Neuchatel, Switzerland, a private banking and wealth management bank.
Since 2018, Mr. Katz is Executive Chairman at Blockworks/Swiss Crypto Exchange in Zürich, which is the first regulated crypto and token exchange in Switzerland. Since 2019, Mr. Katz is also a Board Member at Dreyfus Sons & Cie. Banquiers, Basel, Switzerland, a private banking and wealth management bank.
Beginning in November 2019, Mr. Katz became a member of the iQ International Board of Directors and is serving as a member of the Capital Markets Committee and the Audit Committee.
MELD x Katz
Christian enhances our reach to banking institutions allowing us to partner off with a greater array of fiat liquidity providers, further supporting the MELD protocol.
We are honored to have Christian as an advisory board member to our Swiss MELD Foundation. Christian truly sees the value of the MELD protocol and is fully behind the vision and forward trajectory that MELD is on.
One of MELD’s many financial services will be crypto-backed fiat loans. Users will be able to deposit cryptocurrency to the MELD protocol and then borrow fiat against the deposited asset. Christian’s position as an advisory board member will be, amongst other areas, able to support the reach out to fiat currency providers, introducing banks and other players to MELD. His contribution will clearly enhance our ability to fully optimize our position in the market.
Christian sets a very high standard and precedent for the type of advisors that MELD desires and we have no doubt that, with Christian and the other advisory board members, MELD will continue to attract the financial pedigree that is so critical to our plans.
We welcome whole-heartedly Christian Katz to MELD!
MELD — Enjoy Today, Secure Tomorrow
We think it’s essential for everyone to gain control of their financial lives and have equal access to financial instruments used by professionals, not just centralized institutions, governments, or the 1%. We want to provide financial freedom and control to the masses, including the unbanked.
We have a long-term goal to enable the $15 trillion that is currently locked out of the global economy, including 2 billion individuals worldwide that are either underbanked or have no access to banking services whatsoever, access to these tools. These are the people that are paying the highest fees, getting the worst customer service, and they are the ones that are having the most problems.
Our vision is to create an ecosystem that empowers individuals to regain financial control by providing them with the tools and services they need to manage their money on their terms. Whether that be creating a collateralized debt position (CDP) with cryptocurrency, earning an interest return for lending fiat to borrowers, or even participating in reward incentive programs, we strive to provide our users with the functions they need to manage their own financial lives.
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