Top 20 Citywealth USA crypto #powerwomen 2022

Date: 29 Aug 2022

Karen Jones

Today, with the publication of the Top 20 Citywealth USA crypto #powerwomen, Citywealth celebrates some of the best crypto experts in the United States. They share a passion for the development of #safeadoption in crypto in all its forms whether government, protection, strategy, lawyer, litigator, accountant, counsel or CEO within a crypto native.

Our Top 20 Citywealth USA crypto #powerwomen 2022 is based on independent editorial research conducted by Citywealth.

Congratulations to our Top 20 Citywealth USA crypto #powerwomen 2022

Arranged in alphabetical order (by surname)

Dr Alana Ackerson, CEO, New York

Alana is an early-stage entrepreneur and an active investor, advisor and board director. Alana is currently leading a new subsidiary of Digital Currency Group called Digital HQ for lifestyle and wealth management having previously been a co-founder at blockchain company, Figure. The Digital Currency Group is an active investor in the digital currency industry, with investments in over 200 companies in 35 different countries. They own and operate seven businesses: CoinDesk, Genesis, Grayscale, Foundry (a financing and advisory company focused on digital asset mining and staking), Luno (a leading global digital asset exchange and wallet), HQ (a wealth and lifestyle management platform), and Tradeblock (a leading provider of tools and data for institutional cryptocurrency traders).

Carolina Alonso, Associate, Baker Hostetler, New York

Carolina is the founder and leader of the video game law working group at Baker Hostetler, New York. Her department connects clients to the firm’s team of attorneys with video game experience, including those who are gamers themselves. She is also a member of the Video Game Bar Association. In addition to counseling business leaders in the video game and mobile app game industries, Carolina has an understanding of the challenges associated with XR technologies and multiverse platforms. She is also skilled in a variety of coding languages, including Python and HTML.

Alma Angotti Partner, Global Legislative and Regulatory Risk Leader, Guidehouse, Washington DC

Alma is a Partner in Financial Services and is the Guidehouse Global Legislative and Regulatory Risk Lead. Alma is an expert in compliance, investigations, anti-money laundering (AML), combatting the financing of terrorism (CFT) and economic sanctions compliance. She has over 10 years of consulting experience and has counselled her clients in a variety of projects, managed gap analyses, compliance program reviews, risk assessments, remediation efforts, investigations, and historical transaction reviews. Her clients include global financial institutions, global payments institutions, mid-sized banks, broker-dealers, and Fintech and digital assets companies, hedge funds, casinos, and multinational corporations. She leads the firms cryptocurrency, digital assets and fintech projects.

Joshua Ashley Klayman, Head FinTech, Blockchain, Linklaters, New York 

Joshua is Linklaters U.S. Head of Fintech and Head of Blockchain and Digital Assets. She is one of the best-known blockchain and cryptocurrency lawyers in the U.S. and globally, highly regarded for her extensive experience in blockchain, smart contracts, and cryptocurrency matters, including initial coin offerings (ICOs)/digital token offerings. Josh has represented or consulted to global technology companies, token sellers, cryptocurrency exchanges and relayers; venture, hedge, and private equity funds and their portfolio companies; token marketers and broker-dealers; funds interested in trading digital assets; and major global investment banks, insurance companies, financial institutions and asset managers.

Mercedes Tunstall, Partner, Cadwalader, Washington, DC

Mercedes counsels banks, lenders, payments companies, digital asset companies and fintechs regarding federal banking regulators and compliance with laws and industry standards. She also defends clients against enforcement actions taken by these regulators, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. As a former Federal Trade Commission  lawyer and bank in-house counsel, she also works with companies in a wide variety of industries, including the burgeoning Web3 and metaverse spaces.

Evelyn Baltodano Sheehan, Partner, Litigation, Kobre Kim, Miami

Evelyn advises high-net-worth individuals, institutional clients and their executives in cross-border investigations, government enforcement actions and related asset forfeiture matters, including in criminal law matters before the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL). She has an active international asset recovery practice, including the enforcement of judgments and arbitration awards and the representation of victims of crime. Her matters regularly involve legal actions across multiple jurisdictions. She has unique experience designing recovery strategies for claimants and insurers in the cryptocurrency industry.

Leah Bressack VP, Legal, Coinbase, San Francisco 

Leah is a Member of the Chief Legal Officer’s Leadership Team at Coinbase and leads a team of 18 lawyers. She also leads the Legal’s Financial Crimes team, which advises on cutting-edge legal questions related to sanctions, export controls, corruption (i.e., FCPA), and anti-money laundering obligations, and also leads proactive and reactive advocacy strategies with FinCEN, OFAC, and the Financial Action Task Force, including responding to proposed new rules or regulatory guidance. As well as this she is Lead of the Global Privacy and Security legal teams, which are responsible for advising on global privacy and security issues, engaging with global privacy regulators, and counseling Coinbase’s Privacy Ops and Security teams.

Sydney Brie Schaub, Chief Legal Officer, Gemini Trust Company LLC, New York 

Sydney has extensive experience working at technology companies changing the world: she started her career at Google – helping organize the world’s information, then as Associate General Counsel of Square – helping revolutionize payments, and most recently as General Counsel at Rent the Runway -helping reshape e-commerce, where she led the legal functions. She is now helping Gemini build the future of money.

Helen Gugel, Partner, Ropes & Gray, New York

Helen Gugel is a partner in the Litigation & Enforcement group. Helen focuses her practice on investigations, prosecutions and other enforcement activity relating to market misconduct or potential violations of the federal securities and commodities laws. Her clients include global financial institutions, investment advisers, public companies, non-profits, schools and individuals. Ropes & Gray is one of the leading firms in cryptocurrencies, digital assets and blockchain. 

Franca Harris Gutierrez, Partner, Chair, Financial Institutions Practice, Co-Chair, Securities and Financial Regulation Practice, Wilmer Hale, Washington DC

Franca is Chair of the Financial Institutions Practice. She leads one of the country’s preeminent banking and financial services practices from the firm’s Washington DC office, where she advises domestic and international banks, mortgage servicers, student loan servicers, consumer lending companies, and emerging financial services providers on complex regulatory, enforcement, and transactional issues. Since the inception of blockchain and cryptocurrency, WilmerHale has provided efficient, strategic advice to clients working in the blockchain ecosystem. With roots in the world of securities, futures and derivatives regulation and a long track record representing many of the most innovative companies working with blockchain and digital assets.

Caitlin Long, CEO, Custodia Bank, Wyoming

Caitlin is Founder and CEO of Custodia Bank™ providing banking and financial services tailored to business customers looking for enhanced regulatory clarity and minimized transactional risk as they traverse the digital asset frontier. She has 22 years of corporate finance experience, 1994-2016 (Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Salomon Brothers); Managing Director 2001-2016. She has been a Bitcoin evangelist since 2012 and served on Morgan Stanley’s internal blockchain working group (2014-2016). 

Laurel Loomis Rimon, Partner, Litigation, Paul Hastings, Washington DC

Laurel’s clients are forward leaning Fintech companies in the payment and cryptocurrency spaces. She has been on the cutting edge of financial technology enforcement since leading DOJ’s first digital assets litigation more than 15 years ago. As a partner in the Investigations & White Collar Defense and Fintech & Payments practices at Paul Hastings, Laurel is based in Washington, D.C. Prior to private practice, for 15 years she was an Assistant United States Attorney and DOJ Trial Attorney, including as head of Litigation for DOJ’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section. Laurel also served as an Assistant Deputy Enforcement Director for the Office of Enforcement at the CFPB, leading complex and sensitive investigations and litigation involving banks and non-banks.

Carolina Martinez, Founder, Be Pro Accounting, LLC, Weston, Florida

Carolina is the founder of Be Pro Accounting, LLC, she became interested in cryptocurrency through her husband, a cryptocurrency trader, investor, and miner since the early stages of cryptocurrency. Carolina is a cryptocurrency investor as well as being specialized in cryptocurrency accounting and tax. 

Melisa Ortes Gonzalez, Regulatory Counsel, Paxos, New York

Previously at Kobre & Kim, Melisa is now at Paxos a crypto native. Paxos Trust Company is a New York-based financial institution and tech company specializing in blockchain. They have a cryptocurrency brokerage service, asset tokenization services, and settlement services.Melisa is dual qualified as a U.S. and Argentine lawyer with extensive experience representing major cryptocurrency exchanges. She has a vast knowledge of the blockchain industry and cryptocurrency recovery strategies. 

Rebecca Rettig, General Counsel, Aave Companies, New York 

Rebecca  is the General Counsel at Aave Companies, a group of software development companies in Europe that build open source, blockchain-based software. She began her legal career at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York, litigating commercial disputes and prior to this, was a partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP in the financial services group, representing blockchain and crypto clients. She has spent the past four and a half years advising blockchain and cryptocurrency clients on legal and regulatory matters specificallyl advising DeFi projects over the past two years.

Alexandra Scheibe, Head FinTech, Blockchain, McDermott Will & Emery, New York

Alexandra is head of McDermott Will & Emery’s FinTech and Blockchain Group. She represents financial institutions and fintech companies in all aspects of regulatory and transaction matters in the fintech, blockchain and derivatives and structured finance markets. As a recognized leader in the field of blockchain and cryptocurrency she specializes in first of their kind structures and products.

Lilya Tessler, Head FinTech, Blockchain, Sidley, Dallas/Miami

Lilya is a partner and head of Sidley’s FinTech and Blockchain group. She represents digital asset trading platforms, blockchain technology companies, U.S. and non-U.S. broker-dealers, financial services firms and cryptocurrency funds. She advises technology companies on public and private securities offerings, including blockchain token distributions. She also counsels financial institutions and digital asset exchanges on day-to-day securities issues.

Amanda Tuminelli, Principal, Litigation, Disputes, Kobre & Kim, New York 

Amanda has extensive experience advising clients in the digital currency industry, such as blockchain and technology companies embroiled in complex disputes and investigations. She also works closely with private clients to mitigate personal and business attacks arising from allegations of fraud and financial misconduct, white-collar crime and complex civil and commercial litigation. She is certified in conducting blockchain analysis and utilises her experience tracing digital assets in the courtroom.  She also has an active asset recovery practice where she regularly devises creative strategies to monetize high-value claims. These strategies often include coordinating efforts across multiple international jurisdictions, analyzing litigation risks posed by different governing bodies and leveraging her experience tracing digital assets.

Carol Van Cleef Counsel, Chair Blockchain, Digital Assets, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, Washington DC

Carol is an authority and pioneer in legal issues involving cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. As chair of the firm’s Blockchain and Digital Assets practice, she leads the firm’s virtual currencies and blockchain work to help clients navigate the complex, dynamic and rapidly evolving issues in these areas.  She has built a global reputation as a leading attorney, counselor and problem solver working with fintech companies, blockchain developers, virtual currency exchanges and wallets, payment processors, prepaid access programs, and other business ventures, helping with regulatory, compliance, and enforcement.

Michele Korver, Head of Regulatory, a16z (Andreessen Horowitz), Denver, Colorado

Michele is a dynamic and innovative attorney, policy and regulatory advisor, and former federal prosecutor with more than twenty-five years of government, law enforcement, and federal trial experience. Her areas of expertise include cryptocurrency and blockchains, fintech and financial innovation, regulatory compliance, strategic planning, asset recovery, the Bank Secrecy Act, and managing complex investigations and litigation.