Coinbase poaches LinkedIn’s head of data Michael Li

Coinbase continues to beef up its management team with another new hire in Michael Li, who’s joining the cryptocurrency trading platform as its VP of data. Li spent the last seven years at LinkedIn, most recently as its head of analytics and data science.

“Data will be essential to empowering Coinbase’s mission, and core to company’s strategy to deliver the most trusted and easiest-to-use cryptocurrency products and services,” Li wrote in a Medium post this morning. “I feel privileged to take on this challenging and rewarding new role to start the next chapter of my career.”

 “We will be both leveraging existing technologies like machine learning and AI, as well as creating data innovations for emerging blockchain use cases to keep up with the ever-changing industry landscape. I look forward to advancing the company’s leadership position in the crypto industry through the power of data and will share key learnings along the way.”

On stage at TC Disrupt 2018, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong opened up about his desire to one day run a public company. For now, Coinbase is backed by private investors including IVP, Spark Capital, Greylock Partners, Battery Ventures, Section 32 and Draper Associates. It had raised more than $200 million at a $1.6 billion valuation as of August 2017.

Here’s a look at some of Coinbase’s other 2018 hires:

    Tim Wagner, VP of engineering (July). Wagner was previously a general manager at Amazon Web Services.

    Jeff Horowitz, Chief Compliance Officer (July). Horowitz was the former global head of compliance at Pershing.

    Alesia Haas, Chief Financial Officer (April). Haas joined from New York-based alternative asset management firm Oz Management.

    Balaji Srinivasan, Chief Technology Officer (April). Srinivasan joined through the company’s acquisition of Earn.com, where he was CEO.

    Rachael Horwitz, VP of communications (April). Horwitz was formerly a partner at Spark Capital.

    Tariq Meyers, Global Head of Belonging & Inclusion (April). Meyers was formerly the head of diversity and inclusion at Lyft.

    Emilie Choi, VP of corporate and business development (March). Choi also joined from LinkedIn, where she was head of corporate development.