Former American Express and Credit Suisse Executives Join BlockFi

BlockFi announced today that it has hired Wittney Rachlin as Chief Growth Officer and David Olsson as Global Managing Director of European and Asian markets. Both Rachlin and Olsson join BlockFi during a seminal period of economic and adoption activity of cryptocurrencies, with each new position tasked to bolster the adoption of BlockFi’s suite of products and services for existing and new retail and institutional clients.

As Chief Growth Officer for BlockFi, Rachlin will be responsible for leading several aspects of the business to drive growth, including marketing, business development and the launch of products in the payments space including a Bitcoin rewards credit card slated to launch later this year. She brings 20 years of financial services experience to the table, having recently served executive leadership positions with Prudential Financial and American Express. Rachlin drove consumer and commercial growth for American Express for over 14 years where she accelerated revenue by 20% for four Business Card products and managed a relaunch to drive customer spending, identify engagement opportunities and win loyalty with enhanced experiences.

As Global Managing Director, Olsson will be responsible for growing BlockFi’s institutional services overseeing business development, risk management and sales strategy, across European and Asian markets. With 20 years of experience in financial services, Olsson managed teams at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse covering prime brokerage and equity derivatives. Most recently at Credit Suisse, he ran a private banking team focused on Ultra-High Net-Worth clients, providing sophisticated investors with holistic portfolio advice from investments to financing.

“After I made my first Bitcoin purchase I was hooked on crypto. You don’t have to be a tech or finance expert to invest in digital currencies, and BlockFi is doing something truly remarkable in the financial services space with an approach to digital assets you don’t normally see in the startup world today,” said Rachlin. “Anyone can be a crypto investor, and I’m looking forward to growing our client base and encouraging more people to jump in and benefit from this digital gold rush.”

“Traditional financial markets today are going through unique hurdles that have proved, and continue to prove, to be a challenge to overcome. However, with this, there is also opportunity, and a door has been opened for new solutions and infrastructures, like blockchain technology, to shine,” said Olsson. “In ten years, blockchain technology will be de facto across industries, and financial markets will be no exception with securities and digital assets on the chain. BlockFi has operated with zero losses since its inception and is well poised to lead the market for institutional clients across the globe.”

“The crypto financial services space is maturing and we can see a clear turning point today where traditional finance is being outpaced by digital,” said Zac Prince, CEO and Co-Founder, BlockFi. “Savvy veterans of the old guard will continue to look to alternative technologies and digital currencies to build what the next frontier of finance will look like – and we are excited to grow our world class team to lead this charge.”

BlockFi has also announced that it has added three new directors to its team to fuel business strategy and operations. Rob Margolis joins from LedgerX as Director Institutional Services; Mitch Port was hired from Kraken to serve as Director of Strategy & Analytics; and Dylan Stigliano, formerly at Petal, joins BlockFi as Director of Business Operations.

BlockFi’s platform offers clients crypto-based interest accounts providing up to an 8.6% annual percentage yield on Bitcoin, Ether and stablecoins; crypto-backed loans allowing clients to access liquidity up to 50% of an asset’s value in USD; and zero-fee trading. BlockFi manages more than $800 million in assets on the platform, with a 0% loss rate across its entire loan portfolio since the company began lending in January 2018, even during the dramatic drop in price and ongoing volatility in crypto earlier this year. The company will soon offer a mobile app and plans to launch a Bitcoin Rewards Credit Card later this year.

– The BlockFi Team

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