Quick take:
- Kech leaves his role at Citigroup after one year at its venture arm.
- He has 25 years of experience in traditional and open finance.
- Most of his career was spent at global financial services giant, SWIFT.
Alexandre Kech, Citigroup’s director of blockchain and digital assets has announced his departure from Citi Ventures to join digital asset platform, SIX Digital Exchange.
Kech wrote in a LinkedIn post that this week is his last with Citigroup. “This may seem like a short tenure, and it is. But sometimes, an exceptional opportunity comes along. I will share more about it when I start my new exciting challenge in November,” he said.
He spent one year at Citi Venture, Citigroup’s venture arm and has 25 years of experience in traditional and open finance, most of which was spent at global financial services giant, SWIFT.
During his 17-year tenure at SWIFT from 2001-2018, Kech took on various expert and leadership roles in Standards department around the management of ISO 15022, ISO 20022, and associated market practices.
At Citigroupm he was also General Secretary of the Securities Market Practice Group, a group of custodians, banks, central banks and central securities depositories developing market practices. From 2012-2018, he was head of securities & FX markets, and head of standards Asia Pacific
Prior to SWIFT, he was an operations executive, team lead, and business analyst at BNY Mellon.
Kech joins other Citigroup execs who have left the company to take on new roles in the crypto space. Citigroup’s head of foreign exchange, Itay Tuchman, announced his departure in August after two decades and will reportedly be joining a digital asset firm.
Others that have moved from TradFi to the crypto space recently include Usman Naeem, formerly managing director in the equity derivatives division at Goldman Sachs, where he spent eight years.
Last week, digital asset custodian, Konaimu, appointed Nicolas Bertrand – formerly the head of derivatives markets and commodities at Italian stock exchange, Borsa Italia – as its new CEO.
In August, South Korea’s former First Vice Minister of Economy and Finance, Yong-beom Kim, was appointed CEO of Hashed Open Research (HOR), the blockchain and digital technology research institute backed by Web3-focused venture capital firm, Hashed.
In March, former senior execs from financial services company Jefferies left to co-found Crossover Markets, a digital asset technology company that serves institutional clients.
As part of its hiring spree, MoonPay hired two C-level execs in July with a background in TradFi. In the same month, three JPMorgan execs left to join crypto-focused companies, Digital Currency Group, Algorand, and Pantera Capital.
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