u.today
Amazon’s Devraj Varadhan has joined Ripple as senior vice-president (SVP) of engineering. He will replace Christopher Kanaan, a longtime employee of the blockchain decacorn.
Ripple CEO commented that he was “thrilled” to welcome the new member of the company’s “all-star” engineering team.
Enabling the Internet of Value
Prior to being hired by Ripple, Varadhan had served as Amazon’s vice president of delivery experience from October 2017 to December 2020.
In his statement, he claims that tech progress can have a “profoundly positive” impact on humanity:
“In leading engineering teams at Amazon for 15 years, I witnessed first hand, customer focused innovations at scale that provided people with core necessities essential to how they live.”
According to Varadhan, the Ripple network will make the global financial network more efficient by unlocking the power of blockchain with the Internet of Value, making it as easy to transfer money as sending an email:
“Ripple’s financial network RippleNet, and the RippleX open developer platform unlock the power of blockchain and digital asset technology allowing financial institutions, startups, founders and entrepreneurs to dramatically improve the speed, cost and reliability of how people transact around the world.”
Ripple keeps attracting high-profile executives
In December, Sandie O’Connor, ex-chief regulatory affairs officer at JPMorgan Chase who’s considered to be one of the most powerful women in banking, joined Ripple’s board of directors.
This happened just one week before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) took Ripple to court over presumably illegal XRP sales.
In spite of its legal troubles, Ripple apparently remains attractive for high-profile executives.