Latest in Crypto Hiring: Former Nike, Apple Marketing Pro Joins Segment

Though more crypto firms revealed layoffs this week, several segment players added high-level executives.

The Algorand Foundation named Jessica Tsai Chin as its new chief marketing officer.

The hire comes after Algorand brought aboard Chief Marketing Officer Michele Quintaglie, a former communications executive at Fidelity Investments and Visa. A spokesperson told Blockworks that Quintaglie will continue in that role, while Chin leads on the foundation side.

Chin was most recently head of brand for global privacy at WhatsApp, where she also led the marketing team’s metaverse efforts.

Prior to joining WhatsApp, she worked in global brand marketing at Nike, where she developed mobile-first membership growth initiatives for platforms like SNKRS and the Nike Run app. She also spent about four years at Apple, leading global special projects for enterprise technology products.

Blockchain.com’s former chief compliance officer with an extensive traditional finance background has moved over to Kraken to work in the same role.

CJ Rinaldi joined Blockchain.com in October 2021, according to his LinkedIn. As its compliance leader, he helped the crypto platform build out global compliance frameworks.

Before that, Rinaldi was a head of markets compliance at Deutsche Bank Securities after heading up the investment bank’s anti-financial crimes compliance business. He also formerly worked at UBS, working as a transaction risk manager for currencies and commodities, among other roles.

Monica Long is now Ripple’s president after working at the company for roughly a decade.

She first joined Ripple in 2013 as its first marketing and communications hire, and was most recently a senior vice president and general manager of both RippleNet and RippleX.

RippleNet is a decentralized global network of banks and payment providers using Ripple’s distributed financial technology. RippleX is the open platform enabling developers and entrepreneurs to build payments into their application through the XRP Ledger.

Long said in a statement that Ripple is looking to delve deeper into crypto-enabled services like liquidity, settlement and custody.

The crypto unit of alternative investment manager Brevan Howard hired Kevin Hu as a portfolio manager.

Hu joins from crypto investment firm Dragonfly where he was a general partner and head of liquid strategies. He also previously led liquid investments in Dragonfly’s venture funds.

Before focusing on digital assets, Hu was an investor at BlackRock’s alternatives investment group and also led the group’s research effort into digital assets in 2016.

Brevan Howard’s Digital Multi-Strategy Fund started trading in January 2022, sources told Blockworks at the time. The vehicle raised more than $1 billion from institutional investors but had been recently parting ways with underperforming portfolio managers, sources said.

Crypto tax and accounting platform Ledgible hired Paul Diegelman as chief revenue officer and Will Coleman as head of institutional product.

Diegelman was formerly head of business development and partnerships for data and connectivity at fintech firm Fiserv for nearly seven years.

Coleman was the principal architect of attest services to support cryptocurrency investment funds for Cohen & Company, the largest auditor of cryptocurrency investment funds in the US.

Legible raised $20 million in June as part of a Series A round.

Another week, another week of layoffs

Despite the slew of executive hires around the crypto space, layoffs continued.

Gemini is set to lay off another 10% of staff, The Information reported Monday.

The news came the same week the founders of Gemini-owned NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway revealed their departure from Gemini.

The company is also battling lawsuits from customers of its lending platform, Gemini Earn, following the collapse of Genesis, which filed for bankruptcy last week.

Gemini, founded by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, said last June it was cutting 10% of its workforce — citing the crypto downturn, as well as macroeconomic and geopolitical factors.

Crypto exchange Luno is set to cut 35% of its workforce, CEO Marcus Swanepoel said Wednesday. The company co-founder cited the “incredibly tough year” for crypto and the broader tech industry, including “a series of shocks including Luna, Three Arrows and FTX.”

“Luno unfortunately hasn’t been immune to this turbulence, which has affected our overall growth and revenue numbers,” he said.

The company is owned by Digital Currency Group, which also owns struggling crypto lender Genesis and Grayscale Investments, manager of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC).

Billionaire Jihan Wu is cutting 10% of the staff at his crypto lending firm Matrix Asset Management, Bloomberg reported Friday.

The company’s workforce was an estimated 300 people late last year.

Matrixport had hired a former Coinbase executive to lead the cryptocurrency investment platform’s US business, sources told Blockworks in June.

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