Ripple, the blockchain company, announced on Wednesday (July 11) that it has tapped Kahina Van Dyke to join the company’s leadership team as the new senior vice president of business and corporate development.
In a company announcement, Ripple said Van Dyke brings more than 20 years of experience in banking and technology, and will focus on driving new strategic partnerships for Ripple across the global financial services industry. Van Dyke was most recently at Facebook, where she led the global financial services team.
“Throughout her career, Van Dyke has proven that financial services and technology, when working together, can dramatically improve the lives of people, businesses and communities all around the world,” said Ripple. “Her time leading global teams within the traditional financial services industry — most notably at Mastercard and Citibank — has afforded her insight into how sophisticated risk mitigation and compliance frameworks enable more reliable, timely services.”
According to Ripple, Van Dyke is adept at understanding the importance of bringing leading brands together via partnerships. She has reached partnerships between Facebook and Citibank, PayPal, TD Ameritrade, Visa and Western Union, among others, to give consumers in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and North America easier access to their bank accounts and the ability to send payments on the platform. Van Dyke was also the lead on the partnership with Mastercard, which provided micro merchants in Africa with the ability to accept digital payments via Facebook.
“The culmination of these kinds of initiatives has led to better consumer experiences, emerging business models and new distribution channels across more than 50 countries,” said Ripple in the announcement.
“There is a reason you have only a handful of major money transfer operators in the world today. Without question, cross-border transactions is one of the most complex and multifaceted problems in payments,” Van Dyke said in the release, answering a question posed by Ripple. “Ripple provides a real solution for eliminating the friction in cross-border payments, and it’s delivering value to real customers right now.”