Crypto hiring: Binance parts ways with multiple anti-crime staffers

It wasn’t a great week for Binance’s crime divisions.

Binance’s senior counter-terrorism official Jennifer Hicks left the company this week, according to an update on her LinkedIn. Hicks’ departure comes just two months after she was tapped to lead the crypto firm’s first-ever counter-terrorism finance advisory. 

Also this week, a former Binance financial crime investigator named Suleiman M. announced on LinkedIn that he had also left the exchange. 

Hicks and Suleiman could not be reached for comment, but the latter chalked the departure up to “recent redundancy” in his public LinkedIn post. Hicks both commented and re-shared Suleiman’s LinkedIn post, praising his skills and sharing that she had originally interviewed him for the Binance role.

The apparent layoffs come amid a larger trend of senior official departures from Binance. The company’s former head of product, head of Asia-Pacific and two high level officials for Binance’s operations in the UK, France, Eastern Europe and CIS all left in recent months.

Read more: Crypto hiring: Binance exit list gets longer as French general manager departs

Coinbase senior executive departing

Nana Murugesan, senior vice president of international and business development at Coinbase, announced he would be leaving the company in the first quarter of next year. 

Murugesan was part of an effort at Coinbase to find “forward-looking regulators” to help the US firm expand abroad. In September, the company said it was prioritizing expansion into Europe, Canada, Brazil, Singapore and Australia. 

Blockworks previously reported that Coinbase’s international expansion could be part of an effort to diversify revenue outside of spot trading. Earlier this month, Coinbase reported that the exchange exceeded expectations for its Q3 earnings.

The company recently posted new measures to improve its “talent density,” writing on its blog that Coinbase roles are “not for the faint of heart,” and “unremarkable performance gets a generous severance package.”

Prior to joining Coinbase, Murugesan worked on international markets and mobile partnerships at Snap, the company behind Snapchat. In a message to Blockworks, Murugesan said he would be sharing his next move after the new year. 

Other notable hiring news

• Henson Orser, the head of Dubai’s crypto regulator, left his position this week. Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) launched in March 2022 and has been gradually granting crypto firms approval to operate in the emirate. 
• Sam Altman was ousted from his role as OpenAI CEO on Friday by the company’s board of directors. Altman is also the founder of controversial eye-scanning crypto project Worldcoin.

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