Walid is an experienced leader in the digital finance industry. His 'out-of-the-box' and innovative approach led him to be a key member in some of the most exciting and successful companies (or start-ups) in the blockchain industry. He is today Head of BD and Institutional Sales at 1inch. In 2020, Walid joined Curv, a non-custodial wallet provider leading the Growth and Strategy Operations for the EMEA market. His operating skills aligned on a focused roadmap and his cross-section thinking, helped Curv build and position the Dubai desk as a major hub. Curv has for the first time created the opportunity for the traditional financial institution to be exposed to cryptocurrencies and most particularly to compliance security tokenization. Curv was recently acquired by PayPal. In doing so, Paypal (300M clients) sets a milestone in the digital payment process. It clearly demonstrates that cryptocurrencies have set foot like any other traditional currency as a payment method. Cryptocurrencies are hence set to becoming mainstream. Thanks to his entrepreneurial vision and his sharp business instinct, Walid was from 2016 to 2020 Head of EMEA Sales for Ripple, where he led key strategic initiatives, including institutional sales, strategic partnerships and company operations. He also developed the go-to-market strategy for the first enterprise blockchain product on the market, setting up the ecosystem to drive utility on XRP. Walid is also a Senior Advisory Board Member at HayvnGlobal, an OTC & Custodians in Dubai, UAE, where he provides an expert insight and a value-added approach. As a private investor at Pigzbee, an interactive piggy-wallet for youngsters aged 6+, Walid demonstrates his interest and willingness to support programs investing time and energy in early education on money management for kids, with a terminology accessible to all. He is also a private investor at Arianee, a digital platform for valuables. Walid began his career in management consulting at Unisys, where he successfully led the business and services operations for clients in Europe and the Middle-East. Walid's entrepreneurial drive and his early determination that the world will be digital and decentralized led him in 2008 to create and run the first digitally managed semi-professional football club of Paris-S'nart-Moissy on the platform of www.cmonclubdefoot.fr. Through this crowdfunding project ('1.8M collected in 3 weeks), a club and its management were in the hands of its fans for the first time in football history. This project broke new grounds in the way of raising money. The club's governance model was then somehow similar to what blockchain is today.

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