Ali Rathod Papier has left his role as global compliance head at corporate card expense management startup Brex to become partner and head of compliance at venture firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), according to information obtained exclusively by TechCrunch.
Rathod Papier and a16z declined to comment on the move.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Rathod Papier currently “oversees a16z's international expansion and policy activities, supports the government relations team, and manages financial crime and national security risks, as well as international operations.” Prior to joining a16z in May, he spent a total of two and a half years at Brex, where he held various roles, including head of financial crime compliance.
Brex CFO Ben Gamel told TechCrunch that her departure was “amicable” and that Rathod Papier “made invaluable contributions to financial management and compliance during her time at Brex,” adding that she helped the startup “well-positioned for growth” in its next chapter.
Rathod Papier informed colleagues of the decision in April, according to Slack conversations viewed by TechCrunch. A Brex spokesperson told TechCrunch this week that the startup is currently recruiting to fill her role. Meanwhile, Bruce Wallace, a longtime Brex adviser who previously served as COO at Silicon Valley Bank and head of risk and fraud at Wells Fargo, has been named interim compliance chief.
The hire comes at an interesting time for a16z, which invested in Synapse, a banking-as-a-service startup that filed for bankruptcy in April and has since come under fire for losing an estimated $85 million worth of customer funds. The firm has remained silent about the controversy surrounding Synapse. TechCrunch spoke with a16z fintech leaders and general partners Angela Strange and Anish Acharya about the firm's strategy in the space in 2022. The firm's high-profile non-crypto fintech investments include Wise, Affirm, Deel and Greenlight.
Meanwhile, TechCrunch also revealed this week that Doug Adamic has stepped down as chief revenue officer at Braze, after the company said Garrett Marker was recently named the company's new chief revenue officer. Marker most recently served as vice president of global sales at Braze, a cloud-based customer engagement platform for multichannel marketing.
Adamic became Brex's CRO in May 2022 following the departure of Sam Blonde, who later joined Founders Fund as a partner, but left that role earlier this year. Prior to that, Adamic was with SAP Concur (a Brex competitor) for more than 16 years.
These moves come as Brex announced it was abandoning its co-CEO model, with co-founder Pedro Francesi becoming sole CEO and co-founder Henrique Debouglas becoming chairman of the board.
The two told TechCrunch earlier this month that having two CEOs could slow down management decision-making and bottleneck the company's growth, and they feel that when Brex eventually goes public (which they don't expect until after 2025), investors will be more attracted to a traditional model with one CEO running the company.
Interestingly, in June 2023, former 16z operating partner Jason Mock joined Brex as head of startups.
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