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Ben Sparango is the Head of Business Development at Solana Labs. Previously, he was a Volunteer Analyst at Messari. Messari's mission is to promote transparency and informed decision-making within the cryptocurrency community. Their open-source data library assists researchers, investors, and regulators in understanding the industry.
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Brian Smith
Brian leads finance and operations for the firm. He specializes in deal structuring, due diligence, and legal and financial processes. Brian previously served as a public equity analyst at Tiger Management (where he helped launch a Tiger-seeded hedge fund), a private equity investor with Fox Paine & Co., an investment banker at Greenhill & Co., and he co-led finance at Bazaarvoice (BV) through the company's IPO.
Sami Kassab
Sami Kassab is a partner at OSS Capital and was previously a Senior Research Analyst at Messari. He graduated from Arizona State University.
Ken Yip
Ken Yip is Director of product at Messari. He graduated from Cardiff University in England.
Ryan Selkis
Ryan Selkis is the Founder & CEO of Messari, and was previously an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at ConsenSys and a founding team member at the industry's most active investor, Digital Currency Group, and the largest media brand, CoinDesk. He is also working on new ventures and angel investing.
Mason Nystrom
Mason is an Investment Partner at Variant. Prior to joining Variant, Mason was a Sr. Research Analyst at Messari focused on Web3 protocols and cryptoassets. Before Messari, Mason worked at ConsenSys as a Content Marketer focused on marketing strategy for ConsenSys and its portfolio companies. Mason first entered the crypto industry as an Analyst at Gatecoin, the first cryptocurrency exchange to list ether, Ethereum’s native cryptocurrency. Mason obtained his Master’s in Business Management at Hong Kong Baptist University.
Ryan Gentry
Ryan Gentry is Director of business development at Lightning Labs and former principal analyst at Multicoin Capital.
Haichao Zhu
Haichao Zhu is the co-founder of Rooch Network and has worked on Algorand, Solana and other projects.
Mira Christanto
Mira Christanto was previously an Investment Director at DCG, a data analyst at Messari, and a senior portfolio Manager at APG. Mira manages real estate for lease in Indonesia and an urban meditation studio to engage the community in Hong Kong. Most recently, Mira was a Senior Portfolio Manager at APG Asset Management, focused on Real Estate equity investments across Asia Pacific. Since joining APG in 2009, the fund has also grown to the largest of its kind to US$7 billion. Prior to APG, Mira worked at US$15 billion hedge fund TPG-Axon Capital Management, an affiliate of Texas Pacific Group, where she was a private and public market investor across multiple sectors and geographies. Before that, Mira was in Credit Suisse’s Investment Banking Division in the Leveraged Finance and Restructuring group in New York and worked on a variety of mergers & acquisitions, leveraged buyouts and restructuring deals. Mira received a BA in Economics and Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences from Northwestern University.
Cathy Wu
Cathy Wu is Director of Investor Relations at Multicoin Capital and previously worked at Deloitte. She is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Bergen County College.
Jarry Xiao
Jarry Xiao is a co-founder of Phoenix and was previously an engineer at Solana and Citadel Securities. He graduated from the School of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.