Visa strengthens crypto division with new hires and promotions

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Staff add that the changes come after Visa expanded its crypto capabilities over the past year.

Visa has announced new hires and promotions as it seeks to leverage its position as one of the world’s largest financial services companies to help advance the adoption and use of bitcoin, stablecoins, non-fungible tokens, DeFi, and public blockchain networks.

Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visas, announced the additions and staff changes on Tuesday in a series of posts on Twitter. Among them was Chike Ukaegbu, a former presidential candidate from Nigeria, who joined the company as head of crypto strategy for emerging markets.

Ukaegbu started running for president in 2018, becoming the youngest candidate in Nigerian history. He also founded Startup52, a diversity-focused accelerator in New York City designed to identify and train exceptional entrepreneurs in start-up entrepreneurship and technology skills building.

Chike is a passionate advocate for financial inclusion and has extensive experience at the intersection of technology, entrepreneurship and public policy, Sheffield wrote on Twitter.

Another new addition to Visa is Catherine Carle, who will work on crypto initiatives focused on improving access and education for underserved communities and entrepreneurs.

Anuj Bathla, who has been with Visa since 2012, will join Visa’s global business development and crypto solutions team led by AJ Shanley, Sheffield added. The unit is focused on partnering with crypto exchanges, wallets and platforms to help them issue Visa cards and access the Visa network of more than 70 million merchants.

Other promotions include Alex Chiang, who joins the team that focuses on how Visa can help grow NFT adoption and help customers understand and take advantage of DeFi protocols; Daniel Mottice, now part of the unit working on USDC’s settlement capabilities and stablecoin opportunities to improve cross-border payments; and Raj Parekh, who now leads the Visa service products to help banks integrate crypto functionality into their core products.

Chiang and Mottice both joined the company in 2016, according to their LinkedIn profiles, while Parekh started working at Visa in 2015.

The company is also looking to hire a director of Visa crypto and a senior manager of crypto solutions, according to the job postings.

Visa in February created an application programming interface, or API, that allows banks to offer bitcoin services to their customers.

The following month, the company announced that it had closed a transaction using USDC on the Ethereum blockchain and would soon be open for settlement with digital currencies. Visa said at the time that it would work with digital asset bank Anchorage as a settlement partner and Crypto.com as a payment gateway.

Ben strack

Ben Strack is a Denver-based reporter covering macroeconomics, financial services, and digital asset management. Prior to joining Blockworks, he covered the asset management industry for Fund Intelligence, and was a reporter and editor for various local newspapers on Long Island. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a journalism degree.

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