Coinbase is hiring Barclays executive Brett Tejpaul to head its institutional coverage group, which was formed to focus exclusively on the needs of institutional clients.
The new hire reflects the California-based crypto exchange’s efforts to make a major push into the institutional market, as it targets an estimated $10 billion in big money sitting on the sidelines.
Tejpaul held notable roles during his 17 years of working at the British multinational investment bank and financial services company. He served as global head of sales across all of fixed income and equities, global head of credit and commodities, and member of the five-person market executive committee that manages Barclays’ entire markets businesses.
He also spearheaded the bank’s move into digital companies by managing Barclays fintech venture investments.
In new a blog post, Coinbase’s chief operating officer Emilie Choi says Tejpaul is joining the leading crypto firm as it focuses on better products and services for its institutional customers.
“A theme in Brett’s career has been building new kinds of businesses within traditional finance — a great fit for this particular role where he’ll be making connections between finance 1.0 and the cryptoeconomy…
Brett joins Coinbase at a time when we’ve never been better positioned to serve institutional and professional investors.”
Coinbase first began rolling out its suite of institutional products in late 2017.