Emi Yoshikawa Senior Director Global Operations Ripple Emi is responsible for expanding Ripple’s businesses into strategic international markets and managing joint venture partnership. Prior to Ripple, she led the product development of quants investment analytics at MSCI, which was previously part of Morgan Stanley, and ran a cross-border business consulting firm based in Silicon Valley. In 2017, she was selected as a top-50 “Women in Fintech” Influencer by Onalytica in 2017. Emi holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and is also a CFA charterholder.
Betsabe Botaitis CoFounder/CFO AIKON, a technology company providing blockchain identity as a service. As a leading international fintech expert and an advocate for economic equality, Betsabe has held various senior positions at renowned and leading-edge organizations including Kueski, Mexico’s largest fintech startup, Lending Club, largest peer to peer lending marketplace, and Citigroup, at Citi Community Development and Financial Inclusion. Today, Betsabe brings her fintech expertise and lifelong mission together as founder of AIKON to launch new technology with the power to dismantle biases from opportunity and innovation worldwide. Betsabe has served on the advisory board at the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center, is a fellow for the British America Project and a member of Hipower.
Brynly LLyr General Counsel C Labs which isworking on a full stack, mobile first blockchain solution for developing markets. This open source project is Celo, with a mission is to build a monetary system that creates the conditions of prosperity for everyone. Before her work on Celo, Brynly was General Counsel at Ripple Labs Inc. (“Ripple”), a global enterprise software and cryptocurrency company focused on cross-border payments. While at Ripple, Brynly built and led the legal, compliance, regulatory and government relations teams, led communications with the New York Department of Financial Services and other regulatory agencies and successfully managed and settled key litigation. Before joining Ripple, Brynly was senior counsel at PayPal and eBay for over five years, where she developed payments and regulatory expertise, managed complex litigation, led cross-functional teams and specialized and participated in areas including commercial negotiations, mergers and acquisitions, and patent strategy. Brynly began her legal career at O’Melveny & Myers where she was a part of the firm’s white collar and complex litigation practices from 2005 to 2011. Before joining O’Melveny & Myers, she was a law clerk to the Honorable Fern M. Smith (ret) in the Northern District of California (2004-2005). Ms. Llyr graduated Order of the Coif from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law in 2004.
Olga V. Mack CEO Parley Pro, a next-generation contract management company that has pioneered online negotiation technology. Olga embraces legal innovation and had dedicated her career to improving and shaping the future of law. She is convinced that the legal profession will emerge even stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive than before by embracing technology. Olga is also an award-winning general counsel, operations professional, startup advisor, public speaker, adjunct professor, and entrepreneur. She was previously General Counsel at ClearSlide. Olga also worked at Visa, Yahoo, ClearSlide, Zoosk, and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. She is a Corporate Social Responsibility fellow at Berkeley Law and CodeX fellow at Stanford University. She advises numerous startups including Quantstamp, the first decentralized security auditing blockchain platform where she has served as VP of Strategy. Olga spoke at TEDxSanFrancisco about the impact potential of blockchain and smart contracts and at South by Southwest (SXSW) about blockchain business models. She authored Get on Board: Earning Your Ticket to a Corporate Board Seat and Fundamentals of Smart Contract Security. Olga received a Juris Doctor and Certificate in Law and Technology from U.C. Berkeley School of Law. She also graduated with a double major in Economics and Political Science from U.C. Berkeley.
Moderator: Yasamin Parsafar Associate IP Sheppard Mullin Yasamin is based in the firm’s San Francisco office and is Lead Associate of the firm’s Blockchain Technology & Digital Currency team and a member of the Cannabis and esports teams. Yasamin’s practice focuses on protecting her clients’ intellectual property rights through counseling, prosecution, enforcement and litigation.
