Copper, the crypto custody and trading infrastructure firm, named Tim Neill chief risk officer on September 5, 20221. CoinDesk reported on September 5, 2022, that Neill would report to Chief Operating Officer Sabrina Wilson2. His appointment began with immediate effect. Neill joined from Mastercard, where he had run risk for the company's new payments platforms division.
One of Copper's 6 leadership moves on the record came in 2022
Leadership moves CryptoLately has verified at Copper, by year
- 2022: 1
- 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026
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 |
|---|---|
| 2022 | 1 |
| 2023 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2 |
| 2025 | 0 |
| 2026 | 3 |
37 executive hires on the record in 2022
Executive hires CryptoLately has verified, by year; 2026 through Oct. 2, 2026
- 2022: 37
- 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026
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 |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 11 |
| 2020 | 12 |
| 2021 | 27 |
| 2022 | 37 |
| 2023 | 20 |
| 2024 | 39 |
| 2025 | 59 |
| 2026 | 45 |
The move
Copper's own announcement framed the hire around Neill's 20 years in operations and risk. It named payments, open banking, financial services and technology as his focus areas1. Neill welcomed the move in the company's statement. “I'm delighted to be joining Copper which has set such high industry standards for safety and security in the digital asset space,” he said. “At such a critical time for risk and compliance in the cryptoasset ecosystem, I look forward to applying my digital finance security management experience at Copper to help ensure institutional investors and asset managers can continue to transact and store cryptocurrencies transparently and securely.”
Wilson answered with her own assessment of the hire. “Tim brings a wealth of experience in managing enterprise risk within large-scale global Financial Services institutions,” she said. “Prudential risk management is an essential pillar of Copper strategy and we look forward to working closely with Tim in his Chief Risk Officer capacity.”1
Copper before and after
Neill's prior role at Mastercard covered new payments platforms and digital banking, plus central bank digital currencies, CoinDesk reported2. Before Mastercard, he held senior risk and operations posts at London Stock Exchange Group, Standard Chartered Bank and Deutsche Bank1. He also sat as a board member of Vocalink Ltd UK, a post the Bank of England approved. Copper, founded by Dmitry Tokarev in 2018, had just hired five former Bank of America Merrill Lynch staff to expand its prime infrastructure offerings before Neill arrived3.
What came next
A month into the job, Neill set out his thinking on crypto adoption. He told Blockworks on October 5, 2022, that the first government to launch a central bank digital currency would trigger "an avalanche of very similar types of evolution" across other central banks3. Asked who might go first, he pointed beyond the usual candidates. “I really do believe they're all waiting for someone else to hammer in the first peg…whether it's the Singaporeans, whether it's going to be the Fed,” Neill said. “It could be an outlier — a France or a Denmark — or it could even be wider afield out of Africa.” Copper's own plan, he said, was to combine banking-grade operations with a DeFi approach to risk governance.
Sources
- "Copper.co Announces Appointment of Tim Neill as Chief Risk Officer," Copper.co, September 5, 2022, https://ffnews.com/news/copper-co-announces-appointment-of-tim-neill-as-chief-risk-officer
- Will Canny, "Crypto Custody Firm Copper Appoints Tim Neill as Chief Risk Officer," CoinDesk, September 5, 2022, https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/09/05/crypto-custody-firm-copper-appoints-tim-neill-as-chief-risk-officer
- Ben Strack, "Copper Chief Risk Officer Says 'Cellular Explosion' Will Accelerate Crypto Usage," Blockworks, October 5, 2022, https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiqgFBVV95cUxNT0RVZHg0djMtbThnNFY1cFVyM3czUkpacFFNZW9haVJZXzhIQ01OenZSUFZtcjRUUzlhQ3RkVGQyeFU1MWtIUVphX1pUYWxZWVM0ZkFqdnNDcGFDSGhTUHRmb3R0VkFrenRKdjFKb3AzUDZGWmdzOWFrVmF1RVdBWTkwZ192R2N3Q3RPWnVseTlaUFRFZFk2dWZWZUhpeG9scEstOUpoNm5MQQ?oc=5