Latest in Crypto Hiring: Fund Admin Firm Adds Execs To Expand Digital Asset Services

key takeaways

Blockchain analytics provider names chief legal officer
Creator of crypto-focused team at US Department of Justice is reportedly leaving his post

PolySign subsidiary MG Stover recently appointed several executives to meet the growing demand for its digital asset services. The fund administration firm services hedge funds, private equity funds and venture capital funds.

The hires included Patrick Clancy as head of digital asset strategy; Kenny Broom as director of venture capital; Ray Kamrath as chief revenue officer; Nik Rowlston as head of fund services for Canada; and Brian Wolf as senior vice president of people and culture.

Clancy and Broom both previously worked at consulting firm Armanino. Clancy was a managing director of digital assets, while Broom was a senior manager who performed financial statement audits of digital asset funds.

Kamrath was most recently Amber Group’s head of institutional prime services and also previously was in foreign exchange trading roles at Jefferies and Goldman Sachs.

Rowlston, who joined the firm to build a team of accountants and investor services professionals in Halifax, was formerly a managing director of fund administration at SS&C.

Wolf comes from Mediaocean, where he was also a senior vice president of people and culture and has worked at Kraken and Northern Trust.

Blockchain analytics provider Elliptic, meanwhile, tapped John Melican as its new chief legal officer after the executive had joined the firm in January as chief of external affairs.

Melican has led teams focused on anti-money laundering, sanctions and anti-corruption compliance at financial institutions, most recently overseeing global financial crimes consulting at Exiger. He has also led compliance functions at American Express, Bear Stearns and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi.

Earlier in his career, Melican was an assistant district attorney in New York focused on money laundering and other financial crimes prosecutions. He also spent time as trial counsel for the New York Stock Exchange.

“The crypto analytics tools that are used in this industry to implement effective and efficient compliance programs, as well as the tools used by governments to regulate and investigate the industry, are essential for ensuring that crypto is a mature and well-regulated part of the global financial system,” Melican said in a statement.

Toposware, the lead developer of open interoperability protocol Topos, recently created its Technology Advisory Council to boost expertise in distributed systems, cryptoeconomics and business.

The first advisers of the unit are Vijay Rao, director of infrastructure at Meta, and Sara Tucci-Piergiovanni, the head of laboratory and a senior research engineer at CEA List at Paris-Saclay University.

“Blockchain interoperability is a feature increasingly important to make the vision of the future Internet a reality, but it is still a big challenge to address,” Tucci-Piergiovanni said in a statement. “Toposware is working today on very promising ideas, always grounded on solid research, to make inter-chain interactions scalable and secure.”

Nicholas McQuaid, a principal deputy assistant attorney general for the US Department of Justice’s criminal division, is leaving his post, Bloomberg reported.

McQuaid created and led a team dedicated to investigating and prosecuting crypto-related schemes at the government agency, the outlet reported.

He worked at the White House from April 2013 to January 2017 as a deputy counsel and deputy assistant to the president, according to his LinkedIn profile. He had spent the next few years as a partner at law firm Latham & Watkins.

It is unclear where McQuaid is headed. He did not immediately return a request for comment.

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