Chain Inc. named Tom Jessop president on April 17, 2017. The San Francisco company said so in a press release1. Jessop came in from Goldman Sachs, where he had spent his entire 17-year career. He would report to Adam Ludwin, Chain's CEO, and run all of the company's commercial efforts, the release said.
Two executive hires on the record in 2017
Executive hires CryptoLately has verified, by year
- 2017: 2
- 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2017 | 2 |
| 2018 | 8 |
| 2019 | 11 |
| 2020 | 12 |
| 2021 | 27 |
| 2022 | 37 |
| 2023 | 20 |
| 2024 | 39 |
Trading Venues & Brokerage led executive hires on the whole record, with 40
Executive hires CryptoLately has verified on the whole record, by the sector of the company
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Trading Venues & Brokerage | 40 |
| Layer 1s & Infrastructure | 36 |
| Capital Markets & Treasury | 23 |
| Institutional Custody & Asset Management | 23 |
| Bitcoin & Mining | 22 |
| Wallets & Consumer Apps | 12 |
| Stablecoins & Payments | 11 |
| DeFi Protocols | 6 |
The appointment
Ludwin explained the hire around what Chain needed next. “Commercializing this breakthrough model requires forging deep partnerships across a market and driving change that benefits every participant,” Ludwin said. “Tom has done exactly that, repeatedly, over his tenure leading business development and strategic investments at Goldman Sachs.”1 FinSMEs confirmed the appointment the next day. It described Chain as "a San Francisco, CA-based blockchain tech company" that had named Jessop president2.
Jessop framed his own move around timing. “I am honored to join Chain at an incredible time in this dynamic industry,” he said. “Chain has established itself as the leading enterprise blockchain platform by delivering an array of high profile, high impact projects that are poised to transform the rails of the financial industry.”1 At Goldman Sachs, Jessop had been Managing Director, Technology Business Development, and chief financial officer of the bank's Technology Division. Before that assignment, he led a global team inside the Principal Strategic Investments group, putting money into exchanges, e-trading platforms and other fintech companies, the release said.
Chain before and after
The company was four years old when Jessop joined, founded in 2014 and had raised more than $40 million from Khosla Ventures and RRE Ventures. Its strategic partners included Capital One, Citigroup, Fiserv, Nasdaq, Orange and Visa1. Chain called itself the author of the Chain Protocol, the code behind its Chain Core blockchain platform. Organizations used that platform to build and run their own blockchain networks. Before Jessop arrived, Ludwin ran the company's commercial side alone.
What came next
Jessop left Chain for a bigger stage in finance. Fidelity Investments named him head of its new Fidelity Digital Assets unit on October 15, 2018, the day the company launched3. The job put him in charge of an enterprise-grade custody and trading business for institutions holding bitcoin and other digital assets. Jessop described the continuity himself in Fidelity's launch statement. “We started exploring blockchain and digital assets several years ago, and those efforts have been successful in helping us understand and advance our thinking around cryptocurrencies,” he said. The move carried him from a blockchain startup backed by bank investors into a role running crypto custody for one of the banks' own.
Sources
- Chain, Inc., "Chain Appoints Tom Jessop as President," PR Newswire, Apr. 17, 2017, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chain-appoints-tom-jessop-as-president-300440068.html
- FinSMEs, "Blockchain Tech Company Chain Appoints Tom Jessop as President," FinSMEs, Apr. 18, 2017, https://www.finsmes.com/2017/04/blockchain-tech-company-chain-appoints-tom-jessop-as-president.html
- Fidelity Investments, "Fidelity Launches Fidelity Digital Assets," Fidelity Investments, Oct. 15, 2018, https://www.lifehealth.com/fidelity-launches-fidelity-digital-assets%E2%84%A0/