At a glance
- Kaiser Ng is stepping down as Binance’s finance chief, and Justin Yek, who comes from payments company Airwallex, is the new CFO, Reuters and Bloomberg reported on Saturday 7 Nov, citing a statement from co-CEO Yi He.
- The change comes nine days after the 29 Oct theft of about $6.3 billion from the exchange. Yi He’s statement says the handover was planned over the past six months.
Binance has replaced its chief financial officer, with Kaiser Ng stepping down after more than five years at the company, Yi He said in the statement reported by Reuters, Bloomberg and TechCrunch.
“We wish him the best in his next chapter,” she added, according to Bloomberg.
Who is taking over
Yek’s latest role was vice-president of finance at Airwallex, the cross-border payments company, according to Reuters. He previously led Southeast Asia technology investment banking at Morgan Stanley, according to Bloomberg’s report as relayed by Wu Blockchain.
Ng has been Binance’s CFO since January 2022 and previously worked at rival exchange Kraken, Reuters said, citing his LinkedIn profile.
Binance did not give a start date for Yek or say where Ng is going. CryptoWatchDesk found no separate announcement on Binance’s blog or official X account as of 21:00 UTC.
The backdrop
The finance chief changes as Binance works through the aftermath of the hack it disclosed on 29 Oct. In findings published on 3 Nov, the exchange traced the theft to a months-long campaign against its engineers, as set out in our post-mortem of the theft, and has said customers will not bear the losses.
On Saturday morning, Elliptic said the attackers had about $175 million of stolen assets converted into bitcoin. Separately, Binance France has told customers it will close every account in France on 31 Dec.
The quoted statement does not mention the theft.
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This article is for information only and is not investment advice.