ConsenSys hires IBM blockchain leader John Wolpert and Strate CEO Monica Singer

New York-based Ethereum design studio ConsenSys has hired a number of new employees in the fields of entrepreneurship, finance, engineering, policy and enterprise delivery.

The blockchain venture studio has hired a large amount of talented individuals that come from a range of backgrounds in an attempt to expand their global business efforts.

Several of ConsenSys' noteworthy new hires include: John Wolpert who joins from IBM where, serving for over four years as Director of Global Products, was among a handful of leaders that created IBM's Blockchain business unit and helped create Hyperledger.org; Kavita Gupta, the Founding Managing Partner of ConsenSys Ventures, ConsenSys' newly announced $50m venture arm, previously of The Schmidt Family Foundation; and Monica Singer, the new Blockchain Ambassador in Financial Markets, previously the CEO of Strate.

Below are more of the latest team members to join ConsenSys, both in the US and abroad:

• Nick Kritikos, Global Business Development; Formerly served as the VP of Alliances & Channels, Director of Global Solution Sales, and Business Development at Oracle
• Ryan Selkis, Entrepreneur in Residence; On the founding teams of CoinDesk as Managing Director and Digital Currency Group as Director of Investments
• Manu Marchal, Business Development; Former MD, Basho, Former VP Sales & Services, Acunu
• Chris McKibbin, ConsenSys Spokes & Global Operations; Worked at companies including Electronic Art and consulted with Google, Tent Cent, and other startups
• Mohammad Shaikh, Director of Strategic Iniatives; Previously of the Boston Consulting Group in their Private Equity practice, where he had experience in investments and strategy.
• Jason Brett, Policy Advisor; Formerly with the Chamber of Digital Commerce, where he spent a year serving members of the Blockchain community with organizing policy initiatives.
• William (Billy) Luedtke, Enterprise Architect & Advisor; Previously worked in Ernst & Young's blockchain team, which he helped start as a grassroots effort.
• Maggie Love, Director, Strategic Initiatives & Business Development; Joins from IBM's Watson Group, bringing experience in strategy, product development, design thinking and consulting.
• Matt Walters, Full Stack Engineer; Comes with over ten years of experience building software in healthcare, retail, advertising, and finance and trained teams at The Associated Press, Shutterstock, TD Securities and more.
• Sarah Mills, Product Design Director; Award-winning designer with over 17 years of experience in illustration, scientific publishing, journalism, and software. Mills most recently worked with IBM, facilitating design thinking.
• Johnny Howle, Product Designer for uPort; Formerly of IBM Blockchain where he designed Supply Chain Solutions, Howle has experience in Product, UX, UI, and Visual Design.
• Stuart Hunter, Blockchain Developer; Previously of RubixByDeloitte, Hunter has designed and developed multiple blockchain dapps in the private and public sectors.
• Janison Sivarajah, Tech Lead/Full Stack Engineer; Worked in the enterprise software development and architecture space at Deloitte for over six years.

ConsenSys has also greatly expanded its Australia team, with the following new additions:

• Peter Robinson, Blockchain Engineer & Applied Cryptographer; Worked at RSA for thirteen years and founded the Smart Contract Application Browser project. Robinson holds seventeen granted patents and has six active patent applications in fields ranging from distributed computing, cryptography, Blockchain, and virtualization to password design.
• Kris Randall, App Developer; Founded Evernew Software Consultancy and CoCreations App Developers and designed and developed the eStyleMan system used by Disney, Madison, and Pepe Jeans, for Options Systems.
• Lucas Cullen, Blockchain Developer; Was part of the winning team in the the Deloitte Cnsensus hackathon in New York 2017 and has spoken at a number of events, including the 2014 Australian Senate Inquiry into Digital Currencies.
• Barry Earsman, Solution Architect; Provides experience as a full-stack software developer and has been involved in grassroots work to build local resilience: crowdfunding energy infrastructure and launching a community currency.

ConsenSys' large increase in hires, especially of those highly regarded in their industries, indicates not only the growth of the company, but of uses for blockchain technology and Ethereum, said a statement.