He was an IT professional and now one of world's richest. Now bankers want to join in

livemint.com:

In the shadow of Dubai’s sail-shaped Burj Al Arab hotel, crypto executives rubbed shoulders with Emirati royals, Wall Street bankers and Instagram influencers. 

The festivities in late March were organized by Binance Holdings Ltd. in its de facto home of the United Arab Emirates, which is fast becoming a global hub for digital currencies. Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao skipped the event as he recovered from Covid, but he was top of mind for partygoers who said they aspired to replicate his rapid ascent from software developer to one of the world’s wealthiest people. 

Following Zhao’s lead, many are flocking to the UAE, which he has called the “Wall Street of crypto." The euphoria even has local bankers, lawyers and big tech executives pondering career pivots of their own to cash in.

“We see a lot of interest from employees in traditional financial institutions who want to work for us," Richard Teng, the head of Middle East and North Africa at Binance, which is the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, said in an interview at Bloomberg’s Dubai office. “We’re actually recruiting a number of them."

Career Pivots

In February, Binance tapped Vishal Sacheendran, a former Bank of New York Mellon Corp. banker, as its UAE-based director of MENA. Robbie Nakarmi, the firm’s senior counsel in Dubai, joined late last year after almost a decade as a mergers and acquisitions lawyer.

They’re far from alone.

Ahmed Ismail, a former banker at Bank of America and Jefferies in Dubai, pivoted in 2017. He launched HAYVN, an Abu Dhabi-based digital currency investment bank, with Chris Flinos, a fellow BofA alum. He said several banker friends recently quit their jobs to launch crypto investment funds.

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