Following on the heels of our $22 million Series A funding, we are delighted to announce a new Managing Director as Chief Compliance Officer, a Chief Technology Officer, and a Chief Security Officer

BERLIN (July 2021) — As one of Europe’s leading digital asset custodians, today we announce that we are adding three new executives to our management team. Following the recent $22 million Series A investment round, we are entering the next phase of our growth and adding senior talents with vast experience in the financial industry to scale the organization for our next chapter.

At Finoa we offer simple, secure, and regulated access to crypto for institutional investors. We provide access to a variety of digital assets and tokens and also to novel financial products and services. We have built our own interface and platform to make it easier for institutional investors to access and manage digital assets. We hold a preliminary crypto custody license (§64y KWG) from the German Financial Supervisory Authority BaFin and are on the path to becoming a fully regulated crypto custodian in Germany, a prerequisite for many institutional clients. 

To further drive this regulatory path, Michael Heinks — who has extensive experience in the field of regulations in the financial sector — is being brought on as Finoa’s Chief Compliance Officer (CCO). He has served on the board of several banks — including biw AG and flatex Bank AG — and has worked for many years with AXA/AXA Bank. Heinks will help us develop a sustainable compliance & risk strategy, particularly with regard to preparing the organization for further regulatory licensing. Heinks will also serve as our third Managing Director, subject to BaFin's approval.

Henrik Jondell will be Finoa’s new Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and will lead tech strategy, tech architecture, and associated organization and processes. Jondell brings an impressive background of more than 30 years in building large and small tech organizations and will spearhead efforts to scale up our tech operations as the company grows. He will also coordinate the teams and processes necessary for us to grow successfully. Jondell recently served as CTO at Penta, where he tripled the size of the tech team. Prior to that, he served as Vice President of IT for Arvato Financial Solutions.

Chris Sutherland joins us as Chief Security Officer (CSO), a new internal position responsible for security architecture, risk assessment and mitigation, and cyber and physical security. Sutherland brings vast experience in security. He has a Ph.D. in cryptography relevant to cybersecurity, with 20+ years of experience in the cyber industry. Sutherland also brings experience in the banking sector, having worked on the security leadership team at both ING and Bank of Montreal.

“Finoa is at an exciting and pivotal point,” said Henrik Gebbing, our Co-CEO, and Co-Founder. “We are making great strides in the crypto custodial space, and we’re on the cusp of growing into the company I always knew we were meant to be.”

“The experience that these three bring to the table is truly remarkable and we are proud to have been able to bring all of them on board,” said Christopher May, Co-CEO and Co-Founder. “Chris’s experience in the security industry, Michael’s know-how on financial regulations, and Henrik’s ability to help companies scale up their tech development will enable Finoa to reach new heights.”

The three will be based out of our Berlin headquarters.