Ripple is the latest cryptocurrency company to bolster its workforce in Dubai. Following its acquisition of cryptocurrency infrastructure company Metaco in May, Ripple promoted Metaco's chief growth officer and moved him to the UAE.
Seamus Donoghue moved to Ripple on Friday, becoming its vice president of growth. Although Metaco is owned by Ripple, Ripple says the company is run as a separate business unit under CEO Adrien Treccani. Donoghue has been involved in the cryptocurrency ecosystem since 2017 when he became the Asian CEO of Swiss cryptocurrency exchange Lykke, and has worked between Singapore and Switzerland until now.
Before that, Donoghue had a long history of trading for banks. He was Bank of America's head of G10 foreign exchange futures and interest rates trading, co-head of the global markets finance group at Deutsche Bank in Japan, and co-head of yen interest rate swap trading at Barclays. He also spent six months as a portfolio manager at Mike Platt's well-paid Bluecrest Capital Management.
Ripple is building its office in the United Arab Emirates, which it opened in the Dubai International Financial Center last May. This month, it promoted Preesh Mistry to head of business development for EMEA, moving him from London to Dubai. Reece Merrick, who has worked for Ripple in Dubai since 2021, has been promoted to managing director of the Middle East and Africa region. Ripple isn't the only company relocating employees either; Laurie Kehoe left Coinbase and Ireland for Dubai in October.
However, not everything is smooth sailing at Ripple. A recent class action lawsuit notice filed with the company alleges that the company “offered and sold the digital asset XRP without registration in violation of federal and state securities laws.”
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