Paradigm poaches Brex's top lawyer as its chief legal officer

Venture Capital • June 6, 2022, 2:11PM EDT
The Block

Crypto investment firm Paradigm has hired crypto and fintech legal veteran Katie Biber as its chief legal officer.

Biber, who was tapped by Paradigm from credit card startup Brex, previously served as general counsel to the 2012 presidential campaign of Mitt Romney, who now serves as the junior US senator of Utah.

Biber wrote in a blog post:

THE SCOOP

Keep up with the latest news, trends, charts and views on crypto and DeFi with a new biweekly newsletter from The Block's Frank Chaparro

By signing-up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
By signing-up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

"Over the next few years, I look forward to working with the exciting, cacophonous web3 community to tell our story and definitively flatten the meme that our technology is just a solution in search of a problem (a criticism leveled against the internet in the early days, too)."

"The future is obvious, and it’s our job to make it happen in partnership with regulators," Biber, who previously held top legal roles at Anchorage and Protocol Labs, added. As Brex's chief legal officer, Biber played a role in doubling the legal department of the company, as per reporting from Law.com. Biber first joined Brex in 2020. 

Paradigm, similarly to rivals like a16z, has been staffing up its legal and policy teams with a number of hires, including Rodrigo Seira Silva-Herzog and Josh Ephraim who both joined as general counsel associates last fall. The firm also hired Justin Slaughter — who previously served as the chief policy advisor and special counsel to former CFTC commissioner Sharon Bowen — as its chief policy officer in December 2021. 

Led by Fred Erhsam and Matt Huang, Paradigm raised a $2.5 billion fund last fall.

About Author

Frank Chaparro is Host of The Scoop podcast and Director of Special Projects. He also writes a biweekly newsletter. Chaparro started his career at Business Insider, where he specialized in the intersection of digital assets and Wall Street, market structure, and financial technology. Soon after joining Business Insider out of Fordham University, Chaparro was interviewing top finance and tech executives, including billionaire Mark Cuban, “Flash Boys” star Brad Katsuyama, Cboe Global Markets CEO Ed Tilly, and New York Stock Exchange President Tom Farley. In 2018, he become a sought after reporter in the crypto world, interviewing luminaries such as Tyler Winklevoss, the cofounder of Gemini, Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of Circle, and Fundstrat head Tom Lee. For inquiries or tips, email [email protected].

More by Frank Chaparro