Brynly LLyr General Counsel C Labs which is working on a full stack, mobile first blockchain solution for developing markets. This open source project is Celo, with a mission is to build a monetary system that creates the conditions of prosperity for everyone. Before her work on Celo, Brynly was General Counsel at Ripple Labs Inc. (“Ripple”), a global enterprise software and cryptocurrency company focused on cross-border payments. While at Ripple, Brynly built and led the legal, compliance, regulatory and government relations teams, led communications with the New York Department of Financial Services and other regulatory agencies and successfully managed and settled key litigation. Before joining Ripple, Brynly was senior counsel at PayPal and eBay for over five years, where she developed payments and regulatory expertise, managed complex litigation, led cross-functional teams and specialized and participated in areas including commercial negotiations, mergers and acquisitions, and patent strategy. Brynly began her legal career at O’Melveny & Myers where she was a part of the firm’s white collar and complex litigation practices from 2005 to 2011. Before joining O’Melveny & Myers, she was a law clerk to the Honorable Fern M. Smith (ret) in the Northern District of California (2004-2005). Ms. Llyr graduated Order of the Coif from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law in 2004.
Interviews
Betsabe Botaitis CoFounder/CFO AIKON #blockchainwomen
Betsabe Botaitis CoFounder/CFO AIKON, a technology company providing blockchain identity as a service. As a leading international fintech expert and an advocate for economic equality, Betsabe has held various senior positions at renowned and leading-edge organizations including Kueski, Mexico’s largest fintech startup, Lending Club, largest peer to peer lending marketplace, and Citigroup, at Citi Community Development and Financial Inclusion. Today, Betsabe brings her fintech expertise and lifelong mission together as founder of AIKON to launch new technology with the power to dismantle biases from opportunity and innovation worldwide. Betsabe has served on the advisory board at the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center, is a fellow for the British America Project and a member of Hipower.
Emi Yoshikawa Senior Director Global Operations Ripple #blockchainwomen
Emi Yoshikawa Senior Director Global Operations Ripple: Emi is responsible for expanding Ripple’s businesses into strategic international markets and managing joint venture partnership. Prior to Ripple, she led the product development of quants investment analytics at MSCI, which was previously part of Morgan Stanley, and ran a cross-border business consulting firm based in Silicon Valley. In 2017, she was selected as a top-50 “Women in Fintech” Influencer by Onalytica in 2017. Emi holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and is also a CFA charterholder.
Brian Hamilton COO/CoFounder SafeCorp Technology #challengerbanks
Brian Hamilton COO/CoFounder SafeCorp Technology, a holding company focused on developing and delivering innovative digital financial services platforms globally, and is currently working on a new digital challenger for the US market which is still in private beta. Prior to SafeCorp, Brian was the Founder & CEO at Azlo, one of the most successful challenger banks for freelancers and small businesses in the U.S. A serial entrepreneur, Brian has 20 years of experience in banking, payments & FinTech across credit underwriting, digital product development and executive management. Brian was co-founder at Pushpoint, a location-based redemption platform successfully acquired by Capital One, where he then served as President of Capital One Merchant Services and SVP for Digital SMB banking products. Brian also founded Isomer Labs, a technology incubator in San Francisco, which developed the Chargesmart Mobile platform acquired by Verifone. He has served on the board of multiple high growth technology companies, and remains an active angel investor and advisor to multiple start-ups in the bay area and abroad. Previously, Brian led Product & Strategy for Clear2Pay, a global payments technology provider delivering multi-jurisdictional payment execution and operational platforms, later acquired by FIS. He began his career at Wells Fargo as a Commercial Loan Officer and later VP of product development for the WF Foreign Exchange group. Brian graduated with honors from Oregon State University and the graduate commercial banking program at WF, has been active in the Association of Financial Professionals and holds his Series 65 RIA. He lives in San Francisco, enjoys back country trekking, snowboarding and biking, and is an active advocate for diversity and equal opportunity in the tech community.