Leadership
Ji Kim
President and Acting Chief Executive Officer
Ji Kim is the President and Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Crypto Council for Innovation - the premier global alliance for advancing the promise of this new technology through research, education and advocacy. Prior to this role, he served as the Chief Legal & Policy Officer for CCI.
Before joining CCI, he was General Counsel and Head of Policy & Regulatory Affairs at Gemini, a global digital asset exchange and custodian. In his role, Ji led the legal, policy, and regulatory affairs teams and also set and implemented Gemini’s global strategy for engaging with regulators, policymakers, and the government. Prior to that, he was a senior attorney at Kraken, another global digital asset exchange.
In prior roles, he was an attorney at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP and served as Federal Judicial Law Clerk to the Honorable Robert D. Drain of the Southern District of New York, U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
Annie Dizon
Chief Operating Officer
With more than 20 years of tech, operations, and marketing experience, Annie has held several senior executive positions at the global social impact nonprofit TechSoup; most recently serving as Vice President of Customer Experience.
Prior to TechSoup, she led marketing communications programs for leading Fortune 500 companies in the financial and professional services sectors.
Yaya J. Fanusie
Director of Policy for AML & Cyber Risk
He spent seven years as an economic and counterterrorism analyst in the CIA, briefing federal law enforcement, military personnel, White House-level policy makers and the President.
After government service, he joined the think tank world and as Director of Analysis at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance led research on sanctions evasion and terrorist financing threats. In 2016 he began tracking the illicit use of crypto and wrote some of the first public analysis on a terrorist crypto crowdfunding campaign. He later published a major study on efforts by Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and China to build national blockchain infrastructure.
Yaya is currently an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and Visiting Fellow at Georgetown's Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy. He is a frequent media commentator and has testified before Congress multiple times on illicit financing issues. He is considered a leading expert on China’s CBDC.
Alison Mangiero
Executive Director, POSA
Alison Mangiero is the Executive Director of Proof of Stake Alliance (POSA), a CCI project that advocates for clear and forward-thinking public policies that foster innovation in the rapidly growing, sustainable, multi-billion dollar staking industry.
Alison began working in the industry in 2018, when she founded the Tocqueville Group (“TQ”), an entity that created open-source software and other public goods for Tezos, one of the first proof-of-stake blockchains to launch. Before founding TQ, she spent a decade in public policy and academia, and has broad experience fundraising and growing membership associations.
A passionate advocate of the liberal arts, Alison also teaches courses on leadership at the College of the Holy Cross and is on the Executive Board of Advisors for the University of Richmond's Jepson School of Leadership Studies. An alum of the University of Richmond and Boston College, Alison lives in the New York City suburbs with her husband and two young daughters.
Amanda Russo
Director of Communications
She led C-suite media relations and content for IHS Markit research divisions across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
As a strategic communications advisor to CEOs, heads of state, and policymakers, Amanda worked on the World Economic Forum’s Public Engagement leadership team as Head of Media Content.
Amanda started her career as a terrorism and intelligence analyst.
Cameron Jones
Strategic Initiatives Lead
Cameron has over 30 years of experience in technology, philanthropy, and civil society sectors. She worked in the nonprofit and private sectors in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.
She developed and scaled strategic social good programs for leading tech companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, Adobe, Intuit, and VMware, leading the development of program delivery and marketing strategies.
At CCI she leads strategic initiatives, manages new partnerships and current members.
Advisors
Sheila Warren
Senior Global Policy Advisor
In 2023, Sheila was voted one of the most influential women in DC by the Washingtonian. Prior to the Crypto Council, she founded the World Economic Forum’s blockchain and digital assets team and was a member of the Executive Leadership Team. She oversaw tech policy strategy across 14 countries and regularly briefed ministers, CEOs of the Fortune 100 and Heads of State.
She spent significant time as a lawyer and executive in the nonprofit sector helping companies work with emerging technology to solve problems and increase efficiency. She was on the leadership team at TechSoup and built NGOsource, an online service that helps US foundations reduce costs on cross-border grants.
Sheila began her career as a Wall Street attorney at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP after earning her J.D. at Harvard Law School. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College with a degree in Economics.
She is the co-host of Money Reimagined, a CoinDesk podcast.
Yele Bademosi
Africa Advisor
Yele Bademosi is the co-creator of Onboard, a community-first onchain neobank designed for creators and builders. Onboard's goal is to expand the onchain economy, making it accessible to anyone, anywhere, and empowering people to live radically better lives.
Throughout his career, Yele has invested in close to 100 startups globally, primarily in the financial services and onchain sectors. His purpose extends beyond geographical borders, aiming to leverage innovation, capital, and policy to create sustainable economic opportunities worldwide.
Senator Cory Gardner
Political Advisor
Senator Gardner honorably represented the state of Colorado from 2015 to 2021 after two terms in the United States House of Representatives.
During his tenure, Cory was consistently recognized as one of the most bi-partisan members of the Senate, sponsoring and passing milestone legislation like the Great American Outdoors Act, America COMPETES Act, the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act and the 988 Suicide Prevention Hotline. He served on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Sean Lee
Senior APAC Advisor
Sean is an advisor and entrepreneur in Web3 and FinTech, and has been frequently quoted in Reuters, Forbes, Bloomberg, CoinDesk, among others.
Sean was previously the CEO of the Algorand Foundation, an MIT incubated Layer-1 blockchain protocol that reached top-10 by network valuation during his tenure. He is currently leading the efforts at VSFG, a global financial services platform and the first licensed virtual asset manager in Hong Kong, to develop the regulated HKD stablecoin for programmable payment and cross border use cases across Asia and beyond.
Before entering into crypto and blockchain, Sean spent 10 years and held global leadership positions in cloud computing and open source software development companies.
Sean also advises crypto startups and engages in mentorship and advocacy programs including the MIT Entrepreneurship & FinTech Innovation Node, the Chinese University of Hong Kong Business School, and the Hong Kong FinTech Association.
Katherine Wu
Research Fellow
Katherine Wu is a Venture Partner at Archetype, a venture capital firm focused on leading early investments in high potential crypto startups. Prior to Archetype, Katherine was the Senior Lead on the Coinbase Ventures team, where she led investments on behalf of Coinbase and scaled the investment team. She oversaw a record-breaking year in deal-making, putting Coinbase Ventures among the most active corporate venture funds in operation.
She is also a member of the Salesforce Web3 Advisory Board, where she guides on relevant industry trends and shapes thinking on web3 product roadmaps and other opportunities for investment and support.
Katherine has advised and worked with several top tier crypto protocols and companies (including Solana Labs, the Ethereum Foundation, and others) on issues spanning from investment strategies to go-to-market and other operational processes.
Mark Foster
EU Policy Lead
Mark has over 20 years of experience advising public and private sector entities on EU policy and politics.
He started his career in Brussels as a European Parliamentary Assistant from 2003 to 2007. He later developed expertise in EU financial services as a Senior Official in the UK Permanent Representation.
In 2011, he moved to Kreab, a global public affairs and consultancy firm, where he became Partner in the financial services practice. He has held elected roles in trade associations including vice-chair at the financial services committee of AmCham EU and he retains a role as vice-chair for the EU/UK task force at the British Chamber of Commerce to the EU.
Mark was VP of Government Relations at Barclays from 2019-2021 before establishing his own business – Strategic Advisory Management - at the start of 2022.
Laura Navaratnam
UK Policy Lead
Laura is a digital assets policy expert, and serves as the UK Policy Lead for CCI. Laura is a fintech policy expert, specializing in digital assets.
Laura has worked in financial services policy for over 15 years. She worked at the UK Financial Conduct Authority for 7 years where she ultimately served as the Head of the FCA’s Innovate function, which included all aspects of cryptoasset policy and fintech (sandbox, firm support, international engagement and strategy).
She is also a Director at bespoke fintech consultancy Gattaca Horizons, supporting a broad range of US and UK based fintech clients and leveraging her experience to provide policy, regulatory and strategy advice. She is also a Non-Executive Director for Zero Hash UK, a leading crypto-as-a-service provider.
The Alliance
