Ripple hires Facebook’s Exec payment – a good choice?

Ripple just announced that Kahina van Dyke has become Ripple’s new Senior Vice President, Business and Corporate Development. She has 20 years of experience in Fintech and adjacent industries. She worked for big names such as Mastercard and Citibank. Most recently she worked for Facebook and the team of Facebook’s Global Financial Services. In their official statement, Ripple declared that she “shows the type of leadership qualities and business prowess that will be instrumental as Ripple continues to grow”.

Valuable experience for Ripple

Her experience with big businesses from the conventional banking system could prove to be a key experience for her collaboration with Ripple. Looking at van Dyke’s CV, we see the steep career of an ambitious woman that worked her way up from Membership Sales and Relationship Manager at the Business Council of the State of New York to the international stage of finance in various high positions at Citibank and Mastercard. She made valuable contacts along her career paths and calls people from various industries and in politics her friends. A fact that proofs her ability to bring people together and to promote collaboration. Her job at Facebook was to look for partners that could provide a payment platform. This means that van Dyke has a good overview of the most innovative solutions. What does a website with a mass-user base like Facebook look out for regarding a payment solution? Ripples new SVP, Business Development knows the answer.

Great chat on future of financial services with old and new friends in Dubai. pic.twitter.com/sOktNPhlkr — Kahina Van Dyke (@kahinavandyke) March 19, 2018

Connecting the world and driving prosperity

At a SXSW conference in 2017, she talked about why she joined Facebook in the first place. She “realized how passionate they are about connecting the world and driving prosperity in the world.” A passion that van Dyke obviously shares. It is not clear whether Ripple headhunted van Dyke or whether she actively looked for a new employer. After all, Facebook gained a lot of negative publicity and Mark Zuckerberg continues to sell shares of his own company. Now might be a good time to switch to another company with better prospects for the future.

She also talked about the passion for her work and for technology. “Consumers just swipe in a card and it works.” But they do not really see that there is “40 years of infrastructure” behind that technology. Ripple’s new SVP, Business Development knows the traditional payments industry from the inside out. The work, the technology and also some kind of ideology that a company like Mastercard develops. This might prove to become a valuable asset for Ripple.

A team player, visionary and optimist

Kahina van Dyke describes herself on her Twitter account as a “Global villager. Tech inspired. Optimistic futurist. Human. On a mission for better.” And if you look at her timeline it absolutely looks credible. She follows the newest tech developments beyond her own industry, she retweets tips and advice on how to improve yourself and become a better human and in between, you also find tweets about Football and the Denver Broncos. She even shared a tweet in which the British journalist Nancy Kacungira says that “Africa needs to see itself as the leader of the fourth Industrial Revolution.” But perhaps the best proof for her visionary and future-oriented approach is the fact that she now works for Ripple. The crypto project that tries to reconcile the fiat money system and the crypto world, to the benefit of both.