On Wednesday, September 21st, 2022, crypto exchange Kraken announced Jesse Powell’s plan to step down as CEO. Powell remained in the position for quite a long and has other sectors to look upon. He plans to spend more time looking for product development and industry advocacy.
Powell holds the largest portion of shares in one of the major crypto exchanges in the United States—Kraken. Regardless of leaving his position as Chief Operating Officer, he will act as chairman of the company and remain on the board.
Currency Chief Operating Officer of Kraken Dave Ripple is said to take the place of Powell as CEO of the crypto exchange. The transition is expected to take place in the upcoming months following the filling of Ripple’s soon-to-be-vacant designation of Kraken COO.
In 2011, soon after the launch of the first cryptocurrency ever bitcoin, Jesse Powell and Thanh Luu founded Kraken. By that time, it was the major crypto exchange within the United States. Eventually, Coinbase surpassed Kraken and pushed it towards the second position in terms of leading US crypto exchanges.
Currently, Kraken is the fourth largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of spot-trading volume. Although it is headquartered in Delaware, it has a major portion of its active markets in the European region. The company has a workforce of about 3,200 employees and its valuation sits at more than 10.8 billion USD.
Series of Hirings and Replacement
The recent one is not the first incident of replacing an executive within the company. Earlier it was also reported to indulge in several replacements as well as hirings at the same time when other players in the space were laying off.
For instance, in March this year, Carrie Dolan was hired as Chief Financial Officer at Kraken. In the following month, Mayur Gupta was appointed as Chief Marketing Officer.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/09/22/is-it-time-for-jesse-powell-to-call-it-a-day-from-kraken-ceo/