Former NASDAQ Subsidiary Exec Joins Crypto Exchange Gemini’s Client Service Team

Former COO of major U.S. stock exchange NASDAQ subsidiary Jeanine Hightower-Sellitto has joined crypto exchange Gemini, the company revealed in a Medium post on Wednesday, Oct. 10.

The U.S.-based Gemini, launched by the Winklevoss twins back in 2015, has hired Hightower-Sellitto as a managing director of operations to lead its client services team. As per the release, she spent 13 years as a chief operating officer at the International Securities Exchange, transforming the startup into a major exchange purchased by NASDAQ in 2016 for $1.1 billion.

According to financial magazine Banking & Finance Review, Gemini expects Hightower-Sellitto to develop its marketplace along with enhancing the crypto exchange experience for institutional investors.

Hightower-Sellitto is not the first high-ranked Wall Street professional hired by Gemini. As Cointelegraph wrote in June, former chief information officer at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Robert Cornish joined the crypto exchange’s team to control tech initiatives and to monitor the deployment of Nasdaq’s SMARTS Market Surveillance technology.

Other Wall Street execs have also recently joined various crypto-related projects.

For instance, former Goldman Sachs executive director Priyanka Lilaramani joined the Maltese crypto startup HOLD, the head of Central Europe at Fujitsu Dr. Rolf Werner moved to blockchain non-profit IOTA Foundation, and crypto exchange Coinbase hired former PayPal and Facebook executive David Marcus to be among its directors.

Gemini, ranked as world’s 49th largest crypto exchange by CoinMarketCap, last month got approval from New York regulators to launch their own U.S.-backed stablecoin, Gemini dollar. Shortly after the move, the Winklevoss brothers reportedly started to hire advisors to oversee its potential expansion to the U.K.