Cake DeFi Bolsters Leadership Team

From left: Daniel Lo, General Counsel; Henry Gunawan, VP Compliance; Glenn Huybrecht, VP Operations & Chief Operating Officer (Images: Cake DeFi)

Amid crypto winter and mass layoffs at companies across the industry, Cake DeFi, a Singapore-based decentralized finance platform, has instead ramped up hiring and is bringing in a wealth of leadership experience from the traditional corporate and finance sectors.

Glenn Huybrecht, ex-LinkedIn, joins as vice president of operations and chief operating officer; Henry Gunawan, formerly from Ant Group and Standard Chartered, joins as vice president of compliance to drive the company’s regulatory relationships and licensing strategy, while Daniel Lo joins from UBS as its newly appointed general counsel.

Cake DeFi, launched three years ago, currently has over US$1 billion of total customer assets on the platform and close to 1 million registered users.

According to Cake, the trio will help the company, which has averaged 90% quarter-on-quarter growth since 2019, in its next stage of growth.

“We believe that the next stage of our growth will come from building access to DeFi and Web3 for both consumers and businesses,” Julian Hosp, CEO and co-founder, said in an announcement on Tuesday.

Wealth of experience

Huybrecht brings with him 18 years of experience in consulting, manufacturing, and tech. He previously led a global team in charge of all sales-related professional service outsourcing at LinkedIn for more than seven years. Glenn will head the operations team at Cake DeFi, which includes HR, client and wallet fund management, as well as operations intelligence.

Seasoned industry professional Gunawan has worked at international payments and banking institutions including Ant Group, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Standard Chartered. He will manage and oversee Cake DeFi’s regulatory relationships, licensing strategy, compliance with laws and regulations, and robust compliance frameworks and programs.

Lo brings experience from international law firms and in-house in the asset management and private equity space, most notably with UBS, Walkers, Dentons and RBC. He will oversee all legal matters relating to crypto regulation, intellectual property, investments, disputes, corporate governance and marketing.