SatoshiPay Management Changes
SatoshiPay starts 2022 with a major upgrade of its “operating system”, introducing a new management structure which closely aligns with its new operational design. Meinhard Benn moves to the role of Chairman and Alexander Wilke becomes the new SatoshiPay CEO. Further promotions and key hires complete the restructuring.
Introduction
With the recent successful private presale for Pendulum, SatoshiPay’s business is set for significant growth and this requires the establishment of an enhanced and scalable company structure. An important part of this expansion is a new management structure.
After co-founding SatoshiPay in 2014 and leading the company as CEO for seven years, Meinhard will change his role to Chairman, in order to provide general oversight and to focus on strategic networking. Alex, who joined SatoshiPay in 2016 as Chief Operations Officer, will take over the CEO role.
Restructuring Details
Like every major strategic decision, this restructuring was developed by the company’s board of directors and is fully supported by all board members.
Meinhard will continue to be a director in the group holding company SatoshiPay Ltd. This means the current board structure with Meinhard, Alex and Danny Masters as directors remains unchanged. Dr Torsten Stüber, who orchestrated every aspect of our technology stack for the last 4 years and is largely responsible for the technical components of the Pendulum litepaper, remains CTO for SatoshiPay and is now also the official CTO for Pendulum.
Former Chief Product Officer Dr Aaron Lindner becomes Chief Strategy Officer, with focus on Pendulum. Erasmus Hagen, who has been with SatoshiPay for more than 6 years, is promoted to Head of Product, also with a strong focus on Pendulum. Tansel Inanc, who oversaw the execution of several funding rounds, financial planning and investor relations in the last 3 years, moves up to Head of Finance. Our Operations Manager Minh Thu Dang will become Head of Operations. As a recent key hire, experienced crypto marketeer Daniel Kisluk is joining as our first ever Chief Marketing Officer.
Meinhard will focus on guiding the long-term company vision, strategic networking and high-level community building. He is the largest shareholder in SatoshiPay, which makes him an ideal person to represent the interests of all shareholders as Chairman of the Board going forward.
Alex as new CEO
Together with Meinhard, Alex has been building SatoshiPay from the early beginnings in 2016, when the first major funding round was raised and the company saw its first growth push. He steered large parts of SatoshiPay as COO, headed the strategic change in focus to B2B cross-border payments via DTransfer and brokered large client projects, including Axel Springer and Börsenmedien.
Prior to SatoshiPay, Alex was an entrepreneur and operations executive with more than 13 years industry experience, leading technical and business teams focusing on payments, mobile and business intelligence. Already in 2013 Alex started researching Bitcoin and the emerging blockchain industry.
Alex’ business scaling expertise makes him the ideal CEO for SatoshiPay’s next phase of delivering the Pendulum project and continuing to grow DTransfer into a commercial success.
An ideal moment to restructure
With solid funding for Pendulum in place, SatoshiPay is required to scale significantly to deliver Pendulum milestones. This also requires an update in management style and structure. With Alex taking over the day-to-day operations, Meinhard is now freed up for high-level advisory and networking for Pendulum in the Polkadot community and beyond.
After a transitional period at the beginning of the year, Alex takes on the CEO role and Meinhard becomes Non-Executive Director and Chairman of the Board effective today, 17 January 2022.
Alexander Wilke, CEO SatoshiPay comments:
“I am grateful for the opportunity to lead an exceptional team, growing SatoshiPay in the current phase of blockchain adoption. With the new team setup we can follow our vision stronger than ever and I am very much looking forward to bringing blockchain innovation to a wider audience. Everyone should have the opportunity to use and join the disruptive new era of decentralized finance, banking and business in general.”
Meinhard Benn, Chairman SatoshiPay states:
“SatoshiPay has always been a team effort and I am very fortunate to have brought together such a talented and motivated group of pioneers, thinkers and creators. I fully trust the team to deliver on our mission of connecting the world through instant payments.
It has been an adventure navigating SatoshiPay through an emerging industry, always pushing the boundaries of what is technically possible. With Pendulum we are now initiating the development of a novel blockchain — a new chapter for the whole company, which I am excited to be part of in my new role as Chairman of the Board.”
The road ahead
Pendulum’s testnet is currently being built and will launch shortly. Our technical roadmap is being solidified and extended, with valuable input from our amazing presale supporters.
We’ve recently sent out an updated token launch strategy to our presale participants. The biggest news here is that we have decided to become a parachain — a blockchain running on the decentralised node infrastructure of the Polkadot network. The major advantages of launching as a parachain are a strong engaged community of developers and a secure decentralised network from day one. To make this happen, we will participate in parachain auctions and will also set up a strategic supporter round before that. Full steam ahead!
Our B2B cross-border money transfer service DTransfer, which triggered the development of the Pendulum concept, will grow at a steady pace in the coming months. DTransfer is getting ready for first Pendulum-based test money transfers and preparing transfer corridors with solid fiat stable coins in place.
Many exciting announcements will follow this one, as we are massively growing the team and preparing to release milestone after milestone. The road to becoming a Polkadot parachain will instantly make Pendulum a tier-1 ecosystem in itself and we can’t wait to build a large community around it. Join us!
Meinhard Benn, on behalf of the entire SatoshiPay team
