Ripple announced on April 26, 2019, that Yoshitaka Kitao, president and chief executive of SBI Holdings, had joined its board of directors1. Finance Magnates, reporting independently on April 26, 2019, confirmed the appointment and said Kitao brought four decades of financial-markets experience to the seat2. Kitao replaced Takashi Okita on Ripple's board. Okita served as chief executive of SBI Ripple Asia, the Ripple-SBI joint venture.
Two of Ripple's 12 leadership moves on the record came in 2019
Leadership moves CryptoLately has verified at Ripple, by year
- 2019: 2
- 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
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 |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 2 |
| 2017 | 0 |
| 2018 | 0 |
| 2019 | 2 |
| 2020 | 1 |
| 2021 | 2 |
| 2022 | 1 |
| 2023 | 2 |
Three board appointments on the record in 2019
Board appointments CryptoLately has verified, by year
- 2019: 3
- 2017, 2018, 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 | 1 |
| 2018 | 3 |
| 2019 | 3 |
| 2020 | 10 |
| 2021 | 10 |
| 2022 | 4 |
| 2023 | 4 |
| 2024 | 6 |
The appointment
Chris Larsen, Ripple's co-founder and executive chairman, announced the addition himself. “I am excited to welcome Mr. Kitao to our board of directors,” Larsen said. “From conventional financial markets to digital asset markets, his deep understanding of the financial services industry will offer valuable business insights to help Ripple continue to scale.” Roughly half of Ripple's customers sat in the Asia-Pacific region at the time, Larsen added1. Kitao answered in kind through Finance Magnates. “Blockchain and digital assets are changing the way we move money around the world, and Ripple is the driving force behind this positive change,” he said. “I am excited by this opportunity to lend my expertise and be part of the company's next phase of growth,” Kitao said2.
Finance Magnates tied the appointment to Ripple's own numbers. The outlet reported that Ripple had sold 31 percent more XRP in the first quarter of 2019 than in the prior quarter, a figure the company had disclosed the day before Kitao's board news broke2.
Kitao and SBI before and after
SBI Holdings traces to 1999, when Kitao founded it. He had served as chief financial officer of Softbank before that, and started his career in investment banking at Nomura Securities, Ripple's announcement said1. The joint venture tying Kitao's company to Ripple, SBI Ripple Asia, had launched in 2016. By the time of his board appointment, it had already brought Ripple's technology into a mobile payments app called Money Tap for Japanese banks, Finance Magnates reported2.
What came next
SBI gave its 2026 New Year's address on Jan. 5, 2026, a U.Today report carried through TradingView said3. Kitao called Ripple and the broader cryptocurrency business "a pillar of the SBI Group's earnings" in that address. He quoted his own 2018 remarks naming blockchain a technology that would reshape finance over the following decade. The report traced SBI's stake to a Ripple Series B round the company joined in September 2016. A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit against Ripple followed in late 2020. SBI stood by the partnership through that case, the report said. Kitao gave that address nearly seven years after he joined Ripple's board on April 26, 2019.
Sources
- Team Ripple, "Yoshitaka Kitao Joins Ripple Board of Directors," Ripple, April 26, 2019, https://ripple.com/ripple-press/yoshitaka-kitao-joins-ripple-board-of-directors/
- Finance Magnates, "SBI CEO Yoshitaka Kitao Joins Ripple's Board," Finance Magnates, April 26, 2019, https://www.financemagnates.com/executives/moves/sbi-ceo-yoshitaka-kitao-joins-ripples-board/
- U.Today (via TradingView), "SBI CEO: Ripple Now Major Profit Pillar," TradingView, Jan. 5, 2026, https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMinAFBVV95cUxPZHRTYmhBcFBtVnNGeWZ4ajJ4YWxZWGFTZ2EydHlFY0Vac2VCUTNieTdZRXhzQ1ltd1BBNjItMS1tMHRRSTMxRU9vMnJVSlc2SXNwVGVGWWFyUkFMeF9zaDVZZlkwVUVYeHhyNEtGSjlaOHBwVUMzZGJPelZqSVRXeEI4S0YyaU9odHAtYm56VUVDZTB4bFlKbGRjUjE?oc=5