Mike McCaffrey, the CEO of crypto news site The Block, sent out the following:
Since the earliest days of The Block, our successes have been rooted in the caliber, experience breadth, and tenacity of our staff.
2020 has especially brought this to light. We’ve seen new and seasoned staff members execute on a number of growth initiatives and projects — ranging from an industry-leading research report on central bank digital currencies to new webinar series to a soon-to-launch data dashboard — that have helped bring subscription levels to all-time highs and traffic to millions of readers a month.
But we still have a lot of work ahead of us. Our hypothesis at The Block is that crypto-assets and blockchain technology will ultimately touch all corners of finance, from payments to trading to asset management. We want to be the single best source of news and information about the rapidly-evolving digital asset ecosystem.
In that vein, we are excited to announce the hire of Fintech Today Advisor, Cokie Hasiotis, as Chief of Staff. She will help provide us with the experience that will help us refine and expand our scope while continuing to intelligently report on and research cutting edge, nuanced topics.
Leveraging her expertise in financial technology and banking-as-a-service consulting, Cokie will help The Block navigate further into the broader financial-services industry, identifying new areas of growth that will help us further differentiate ourselves from our peers. With more than six years of experience leading fintech initiatives for financial institutions, Cokie brings deep expertise in cutting-edge financial technologies.
Cokie began her financial services career in London at the Association for Financial Markets in Europe, a European trade association, where for two years she worked closely with traditional financial institutions on the development of strategy with respect to new financial technologies.
In 2018, she joined BCG to lead a global fintech research team, working with investment banks to deliver best-in-class research and data products. From there, she moved to New York with 11:FS, a digital consultancy, to launch their American efforts. After that program shut down due to COVID-19, she has been independently consulting a number of banks, infrastructure providers, and fintechs on banking-as-a-service while also exploring her creative side by writing a weekly column for Fintech Today.
At The Block, she will spearhead a number of broader strategic initiatives that span our divisions, and cultivate a culture of diversity that will make the firm and industry more accessible and inclusive to underrepresented groups. As she put it:
“The Block is the most successful information services provider in the digital asset space, and it provides a platform that can propel the adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology to democratize access to financial services in the U.S. and beyond. It’s time to marry counterculture with mainstream financial services to ascend to the next stage of banking.”
We’re excited to have Cokie on the team and are excited to see what the rest of 2020 holds in store.
