Binance Names Justin Yek CFO Nine Days After $6.3B Hack
Co-CEO Yi He said the handover was planned over six months. Yek was vice president of finance at Airwallex; Ng had been CFO since January 2022.
Binance said Saturday that finance chief Kaiser Ng is leaving after more than five years, with Justin Yek taking over as CFO. The change comes nine days after hackers took about $6.3 billion from the exchange on Oct. 29, Reuters reported.
The company tied the move to a plan, not the breach. "Kaiser Ng has decided to pursue a new venture after more than five years at Binance, with a transition plan implemented over the last half year," co-CEO Yi He said in a statement carried by Reuters. TechCrunch, citing Bloomberg, reported the same quote.
Yek comes from a payments company
Yek was most recently vice president of finance at Airwallex, a payments firm, according to Reuters. Ng has been Binance's CFO since January 2022 and worked at Kraken before that, Reuters said, citing his LinkedIn profile.
Why does the seat matter right now? A chief financial officer runs a company's money: its books, cash, reporting and the reserves that back what it owes. At an exchange, that last part is customer balances. Binance has said it will fully reimburse users hit by the theft, and TechCrunch quoted the company: "These losses will not be passed on to users." Covering a loss that size from company funds is a finance-office job.
What the statement leaves out
Neither report gives Ng's last day, says what his new venture is, or explains why the handover was announced now. Binance's statement, as quoted, does not mention the hack.
Binance has said the attack began months earlier with malware hidden in software downloads and fake job offers aimed at its engineers. The FBI has blamed a North Korean hacking group, an allegation Pyongyang has denied, Reuters reported.
In our opinion: the timing will draw questions, and Binance has answered only one of them: it says the plan predates the breach by six months. The open item is the reimbursement bill, which now lands on a new CFO's desk in his first weeks. The next thing to watch is any Binance update on how much of that reimbursement has been paid, and from which funds.
Sources: Reuters via CNA: Binance CFO Kaiser Ng steps down, Justin Yek named new finance · Reuters via The Globe and Mail · TechCrunch: Binance CFO is leaving to 'pursue a new venture' after $6.3 billion · The Defiant: Binance Names Justin Yek CFO as Kaiser Ng Prepares to Leave
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