Bios: Demystifying DeFi: Speaker

MODERATOR

Linda Kreitzman, Berkeley SkyDeck Accelerator Blockchain/Crypto track Co-Chair, 0xPartners

Linda Kreitzman joined 0xP as partner and investor on May 1st, 2021. She is currently a lecturer at the Haas School of Business for the Master of Financial Engineering program and industry Lead for the Center for Responsible Decentralized Intelligence (RDI) and strategic advisor/crypto track chair for SkyDeck at UC Berkeley. Linda has spent the last twenty-one years at the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley, first as director then executive director and assistant dean of the top tier MFE program which she helped launch in 2000. Linda was the first director in the United States to develop a pre-program set of courses and curriculum in data science and machine learning tailored to each admitted student as early as 2012 as well as seminars on blockchain and cryptocurrencies beginning 2013. In 2017, Linda was invited by Dr. Laura Tyson, Clinton's former presidential advisor and former dean of the Haas School, to be the co-lead on the Faculty Research Review Committee on the Berkeley Blockchain Initiative where she oversees the students' projects on blockchain and cryptocurrency. Linda possesses extensive worldwide industry contacts in finance, Fintech and blockchain. She holds post graduate degrees in economics and political science. She is fluent in English, French and Spanish and is also investor, adviser, and board member to several start-ups in the United States, France, and Israel.

PANELISTS

Irina Berkon, CFO and Board Member of digital assets technology leader, Metallicus

Irina Berkon is the CFO and Board Member of digital assets technology leader Metallicus, as well as Co-Founder and Director of First Blockchain Bank and Trust Holdings. Her leadership is instrumental in helping Metallicus deliver on its vision to bridge the gap between crypto and traditional financial services and prepare the industry for a secure, compliant, radical future. As a Forbes featured executive, serving in multiple senior roles, in addition to being a Managing Director of an angel investment fund focusing on women founders, Irina is a pivotal figure within the industry.

Mona Hamdy, Chief Strategy Officer at Sino Global Capital

Mona Hamdy is a Harvard teaching fellow in Applied Ethics, and is the Chief Strategy Officer for Sino Global Capital, a global venture capital firm specializing in digital assets and blockchain.

She is also the Co-founder of Al Bayadha Development Corporation, an organization that seeks to generate wealth in and create social change for society by combining the best of local ancient practice with cutting-edge modern innovation implemented by the inhabitants themselves. Prior to founding the Al Bayadha project, Mona was the executive director of the Mosaic Foundation, an American cultural nonprofit comprised of the spouses of the Arab ambassadors posted in Washington DC, whose two fold mission was to improve the lives of women and children around the world and increase cultural understanding between the peoples of the Arab world and the United States.

Cindy Li, Crypto Risk & Policy Advisor, San Francisco Fed and the Federal Reserve System

Cindy Li is a Crypto Risk & Policy Advisor at the San Francisco Fed and the Federal Reserve System’s lead on emerging fintech supervision. She formerly led the SF Fed’s Country Analysis Unit, where she was responsible for SF Fed’s Asia banking sector surveillance efforts. Before joining the Fed, Cindy was a senior economist at the Milken Institute, where she oversaw research projects on global capital market trends and banking regulation. Cindy has a PhD in economics (UC Riverside) and a BA in international finance (Peking University in China). Cindy Li is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter holder.

Gabriel Vincent Kho, Head of Crypto, ALT

Gabriel is currently the Head of Crypto at ALT. In addition, he leads the Lending product and engineering team. Prior to ALT, he worked as a tech lead at Flexport, and graduated from Stanford. He enjoys reading and music festivals in his free time.

David Streltsoff, Senior Sales Executive, FalconX

David Streltsoff is a seasoned revenue executive with over 20 years on Wall Street and most recently a crypto enthusiast who started down the rabbit hole in 2018. Currently, David is a Senior Sales Executive at FalconX with a focus on both crypto native and traditional finance firms. Previously he led revenue at a crypto market maker - Efficient Frontier as the CRO. There he streamlined processes (internal & external.) focused messaging and highlighted the need for sales, service and support to work in a single team leading to an over 800% rise in top line revenue and contributing to the close of a 12M pre-A round. David’s Wall Street career as an early member of a start-up - EdgeTrade. In January 2008 David was one of the key members responsible for Knight Capitals acquisition of EDGETRADE. From there he proceeded to work for Knight Capital to build out their algo desk to be one of the top execution-only brokers/market makers and was consistently recognized for his team leadership and sales production. From there, David was recruited over to Citadel Securities to lead the build out of their agency algo execution desk. At Citadel he was responsible for over 1100% growth in his first year, and tasked with the expansion of the agency algo unit, both internal and external. During his tenure Citadel overtook Knight Capital as the #1 Market Maker globally. David earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Management from Clark University.