Fintech Focus — September 2021
A curated selection of hires and promotions from across fintech. If you would like to sign up to receive this newsletter, please visit our website.
What We’re Following
El Salvador is officially accepting Bitcoin as legal tender. Jury’s still out as to whether the velocity of Bitcoin can match that of other M1 payments, but Jack Mallers certainly seems to think this thing has legs🏃🏼♀️.
In other international news, China declared all cryptocurrency transactions illegal🙊. I suppose my high school Physics teacher would be proud that I still remember “For every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction,” but I doubt she foresaw its application to the state of international cryptocurrency adoption.
If El Salvador was one step forward and China was one step back, then the US is still trying to get its shoes on🤷🏾♂️. Stablecoin regulation is the name of the game here in the States. Much to the chagrin of Brian Armstrong, the US has yet to take a stance on the regulation and legality of stablecoins, crypto lending, NFTs, and so on. To better understand the landscape and regulatory environment, check out this piece by a16z.
If you’re looking for more Intersection Growth Partners in your life or you want to see this smile in person, come say hi to us at Money20/20 in Vegas next month. We’ll be accepting party invites by Twitter or by Abba-tar. Pick your poison and meet us on the dance floor 😘💃🏽.
🍻Cheers,
Catherine, Blake, Elizabeth, Hugh, Kelsey and Scott
Who We’re Following
a16z: Joe Schmidt joined the fintech team as a Partner. Joe was previously the VP of Business Development at Ethos. Link Jane Lippencott joined as a Crypto Partner. Jane was previously a partner at Distributed Global. Link Brian Quintenz joined as a Crypto Advisory Partner. Brian was previously the Commissioner of the U.S Commodity Futures Trading Commission. As always, we enjoyed partnering with the team at a16z! Link
Acorns: David Hijirida joined as President. David was previously the CEO of Simple Finance. Link
Addi: Niki Sri-Kumar joined as a VP and GM of Payments. Niki was previously a VP and Head of Product at Vise. Link We’re grateful to have partnered with Santi Suarez on this crucial assignment.
Arbo Works: Edward Chang joined as a Co-Founder and Arbonaut. Edward was previously a Director of Product Management at Google. Link
AvidXchange: Joe Fox joined as Chief Product Officer. Joe was previously the CEO of a stealth startup. Link
Binance.US: Brian Shroder joined as President. Brian was previously the Head of Business Development, Global Partnerships and Head of South East Asia at Ant Group. Link
BlockFi: Ellen-Blair Chube joined as a Board Member. Ellen is a Managing Director and Client Services Officer at William Blair. Link
BlueVine: David Quinn joined as Chief Financial Officer. David was previously the Commercial Bank CFO at Silicon Valley Bank. Link
BNY Mellon: Hadley Stern joined as Global Head of Digital Custody. Hadley was previously the Head of AWS Innovation Labs. Benjamin Duve joined as Director of Digital Assets and Blockchain. Benjamin was previously the Head of Digital Assets and Custody at Commerzbank. Finally, David Schwed joined as Global Head of Digital Asset Technology. David was previously an MD and CISO at Galaxy Digital. Link
Brevan Howard: Colleen Sullivan joined as Head of the newly created cryptocurrency investing platform, BH Digital. Colleen was previously the Co-founder and CEO of CMT Digital. Link We’re grateful to have partnered with Alan Howard, Aron Landy and Gautam Sharma on this critical assignment.
Brex: Karen Tillman joined as Chief Communications Officer. Karen was previously an SVP and Chief Communications Officer at GoDaddy. Link
Celo: Danielle Andrzejewski joined as Head of Commerce. Danielle previously co-led the Fintech GTM team at a16z. Chris Ostrowski joined as a Global Head of Public Sector Engagement. Chris was previously the CRO of OMFIF and Managing Director of the Digital Monetary Institute. Link
Circle: John Andrews joined as Head of Investor Relations. John was previously the Head of Investor Relations at Fannie Mae. We’re grateful for the continued partnership with Jeremy Allaire, Elisabeth Carpenter and Jeremy Fox-Geen on this assignment.
Coinbase: Chinmoy Panigrahi joined as Head of Product, Retail Financing. Chinmoy was previously a Product Lead at Google. Link Will Robinson joined as VP of Engineering. Will was previously the CTO at ASAPP.
Compass: Adam Sohn joined as Chief Communications Officer. Adam was previously an SVP of Communications at Intuit. Link
ConsenSys: Marc Mercuri joined as the Head of Business Unit. Marc was previously a Principal Product PM, Microsoft Power Platform at Microsoft.
Current: Jodi Golisnky joined as General Counsel. Jodi was previously a Director and Associate GC of Financial Services at Shopify. Ravi Bhatia joined as Head of Credit. Ravi was previously the Head of Global Credit Risk Oversight at PayPal.
Dave: Ashish Tajpuria joined as Head of Partner Products. Ashish was previously the Head of Marketplace and Strategic Partnerships at Varo Bank.
Ethos: John Kunze, Priscilla Hung and Khozema Shipchandler joined as Board Members. John is an SVP of Customer Experiences at PayPal, Priscilla Hung is the President & COO of Guidewire, and Khozema Shipchandler is the CFO of Twilio. Link
eToro: Michael Ptasznik joined as a Board Member. Michael was previously the CFO as Nasdaq. Link
Flori Ventures: Maria Alegre founded a venture firm and joined as Co-founder and Managing Partner. Maria was previously the Co-founder and CEO of Chartboost, Inc. Link
Fundbox: Renuka Nayani joined as VP of Finance. Renuka was previously a Senior Director of FP&A at Opportun. We’re grateful for our continued partnership with Marten Abrahamsen on this assignment.
Goldman Sachs: Lee Brenner joined as Head of Public Policy, Digital Assets. Lee previously led US and International Institutions Public Policy & External Affairs at Facebook Financial.
Green Dot: Mike Althouse joined as Chief Compliance Officer. Mike was previously the CCO at The Bancorp.
Guideline: Christine Rimer joined as Chief Customer Officer. Christine was previously a VP of Customer Experience at Momentive AI.
nCino: Josh Glover was promoted to President and Chief Revenue Officer. Josh was previously the CRO. Greg Orenstein was promoted to Chief Corporate Development & Strategy Officer. Greg was previously the Chief Corporate Development & Legal Officer and Secretary. Trisha Price was promoted to Chief Innovation Officer. Trisha was previously the Chief Product Officer. Link
Oportun: Roy Banks and Rick Welts joined as Board Members. Roy is the CEO of Weave HQ and Rick is the President and Chief Operating Officer of the Golden State Warriors. Link
Paxos: Mike Coscetta joined as Chief Revenue Officer. Mike was previously the Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Strategy Officer at Compass.
Payoneer: Keren Levy was promoted to President and GM of Payoneer Merchant Services. Keren was previously the COO. Arnon Kraft will be replacing Keren as COO. Arnon was previously the CEO of Big 4 Strategic Consulting. Pam Patsely joined as a Board Member. Pam was previously the Executive Chairman of MoneyGram International. Link
Plaid: Sheila Jambekar joined as Chief Policy Officer. Sheila was previously a VP and Deputy GC of Privacy and Product, DPO at Twilio. Link
Robinhood: Elisabeth Diana joined as VP of Communications. Elisabeth was previously a VP of Corporate Communications at Facebook. Link
Root Inc: Dan Rosenthal was promoted to Chief Revenue & Operating Officer. Dan was previously the CFO. Link
SigFig: Samir Salvi joined as Chief Financial Officer. Samir was previously the CFO of Products and Solutions and Head of FP&A at Green Dot.
Sila: Rick Holt joined as Chief Revenue Officer. Rick was previously the Chairman, CEO and Co-founder at SOLE Financial. Link
Sonder: Janice Sears joined as a Board Member and Chair of the Audit Committee. Janice was previously the Western Region Head at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Frits van Paasschen was promoted to Lead Independent Director. Frits was previously a Board Member and is the former President and CEO of Starwood Hotels. Link
Tala: Kelly Uphoff joined as Chief Technology Officer. Kelly was previously a VP of Data Science and Engineering at Netflix.
WestCap: Kapil Mokhat joined as a Managing Director. Kapil was previously the Head of Commerce at Venmo.
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 🚀.
