Input Output Global named Eran Barak chief executive of Midnight on March 27, 20231. Barak had just served as chief operating officer at Symphony, a workflow firm he helped start, and had helped set up the Fintech Open Source Foundation. CityAM reported the news on March 27, 2023. The outlet called Midnight a "new data-protection focused protocol" built as a sidechain of Cardano2.
Two leadership moves at the Midnight Foundation on the record since 2023
Every move CryptoLately has verified there, by the day it became public
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| March 27, 2023 | Barak became CEO, Midnight. Eran Barak was named Chief Executive Officer, Midnight of the Midnight Foundation |
| May 13, 2025 | Syed became President. Fahmi Syed was named President of the Midnight Foundation |
17 CEO appointments on the record in 2023
CEO appointments CryptoLately has verified, by year; 2026 through Oct. 2, 2026
- 2023: 17
- 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 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 | 8 |
| 2020 | 7 |
| 2021 | 6 |
| 2022 | 18 |
| 2023 | 17 |
| 2024 | 26 |
| 2025 | 35 |
| 2026 | 18 |
The move
IOG's blog post said Barak would "lead and build out the business unit building Midnight," a chain IOG had announced at the end of 20221. Charles Hoskinson, chief executive and co-founder of IOG, tied the hire to Barak's past in finance. “Eran's track record in building businesses and championing transformative technology in financial services makes him the perfect fit as we continue the journey in bringing a truly revolutionary product to market,” Hoskinson said. Barak answered in his own words: “With its commitment to rigor, research and world-class engineering, IOG has rightly built a reputation as a leader in the blockchain space. In Midnight, IOG has built a ground breaking technology, addressing market needs by delivering on the trifecta of risk & compliance, world-class performance and cost predictability.”2
Why hand a privacy chain to a finance executive instead of a cryptographer? IOG's post gives one answer. Midnight would let users choose what data to make public while they still met legal rules1. Hoskinson said the project needed someone who grasped “the heart of the product and the benefits it will bring to a global, digital ecosystem”. Barak's résumé also held senior roles at Amdocs and Thomson Reuters, CityAM reported2.
Midnight before and after
Before Barak's hire, Midnight was an announced idea that still lacked a named leader, IOG's post said1. The post laid out the plan. It would mix private and public computation with zero-knowledge proofs, a tool that proves a fact true while it hides the data behind it. The chain was built for coders, firms, governments and people who had to share sensitive data under legal rules. Midnight would run as a sidechain of Cardano, IOG said, which would give it Cardano's security and more uses.
What came next
The Midnight Foundation opened on May 13, 2025, more than two years after Barak's hire, to run as Midnight's governing body3. Fahmi Syed, who had been chief financial officer at Parity Technologies, took the role of president. Syed's own words placed Barak in a new title by then: chief executive of Shielded Technologies, the firm the Foundation named as Midnight's main tech partner. “Working alongside Shielded Technologies and its visionary CEO, Eran Barak, we are committed to building a thriving, global ecosystem,” Syed said. The Foundation's job was to guide Midnight toward full decentralization. Control over upgrades and treasury funds would pass to holders of the network's NIGHT token in time, the release said.
Sources
- Tim Harrison, "Former Symphony COO joins Cardano builder IOG as CEO of new Midnight blockchain project," Input Output Global (IOHK Blog), March 27, 2023, https://web.archive.org/web/20231001181751/https://iohk.io/en/blog/posts/2023/03/27/former-symphony-coo-joins-cardano-builder-iog-as-ceo-of-new-midnight-blockchain-project/
- Darren Parkin, "Former Symphony COO joins Cardano builder IOG as CEO of new Midnight blockchain project," CityAM, March 27, 2023, https://www.cityam.com/former-symphony-coo-joins-cardano-builder-iog-as-ceo-of-new-midnight-blockchain-project/
- Midnight Foundation, "Midnight Foundation Launches to Support Growth of Secure and Decentralized Blockchain Network," PR Newswire, May 13, 2025, https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMi3wFBVV95cUxNQjZSeXpVd1BabUdZVjk4eGZoS1RDRXpBNXRVSGVpU01ZNi15aGticVJsVXVEMEp4ZWpvZ1JrM2hWaGlval9lZGJ3bFpIUW9UUnR4bjZ4eTFxOUxpSE1vSXliQVVtT3FZem9KVm1OWmNXWHpQUy1kOHBhU1dXd2pKWUEyQkpxaG5kZGRzSUxTbVZUM2dHYTNoaWVHcy1NUEJjQ25KbnVodklOUHAxVE9vcmVDZkJ2aVR4Y0tSWnZINUVvZjRBRmRxWlhuallHcWROTGVNaXdid1NDRnE3SEQ0?oc=5