The crypto world was shocked when Changpeng “CZ” Zhao quit all of a sudden. But who is Richard Teng, the new CEO of Binance?
From Singapore, Mr. Teng joined the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world a little more than two years ago as the CEO of his home country.
That was the year that the Justice Department began to look into Binance. As regulators paid more attention to the company and Mr. Zhao, Mr. Teng quickly moved up in the background.
His LinkedIn page says he was in his first job as CEO of Singapore for only 5 months before being moved to Regional Head of Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa in April 2023.
Later, in May, Mr. Teng became Head of Regional Markets. On Tuesday, he was given the top job, just a little more than two years after he started working for Binance.
When Mr. Zhao announced that Mr. Teng would be taking over as CEO, he called Mr. Teng a “highly qualified leader” and said that “with over three decades of financial services and regulatory experience, he will navigate the company through its next period of growth.”
In the financial and regulatory fields before joining Binance, Mr. Teng was a director of corporate finance at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the top regulatory officer of the Singapore Exchange (SGX).
He then became CEO of the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), which is an international business hub in the UAE. He held that position for six years. The ADGM sets rules for trading digital goods.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Mr. Teng said he was proud to take on the job and that his main goal would be to reassure Binance’s 150 million users about “the financial strength, security, and safety of the company.”
There will be some hard times in his new job, though. One of Mr. Teng’s goals will be to keep customers’ trust, since Binance’s image has been hurt in recent months.
In March, US officials tried to ban the company because they said it was breaking the law by doing business in the US. It was also said to have broken many US financial laws, including rules meant to stop people from moving money.
Later, the Justice Department told Binance it had to pay $4.3bn (£3.4bn) in fines and losses. Even so, Mr. Teng said again that Binance was “here to stay” and that the company’s base is “stronger than ever.”
