Alexander Leishman
Alexander Leishman is the Founder, CEO, and Chief Technology Officer of River Financial, a Bitcoin-centric financial institution offering brokerage services that enable users to buy, sell, and securely hold Bitcoin. Leishman is a prominent figure in the cryptocurrency landscape, particularly known for his contributions to making Bitcoin more accessible and understandable to investors. Prior to co-founding River Financial, he most recently served on the investment and engineering teams at Polychain Capital and Polychain Labs focusing on Bitcoin-related venture investments. Before that, he served as an Engineer at Airbnb's security team and a Management Consultant for Deloitte. He first got deeply involved in the Bitcoin industry as an early engineer at Maicoin, Taiwan's largest digital asset exchange.
Alexander Leishman Professional Experience / Academic History
Professional Experience
-
Founder, CEO, and Chief Technology Officer
-
Engineer and Investor
-
Business Analyst
-
Research Assistant
Academic History
-
M.S., Computer Science
-
B.S., Aerospace Engineering
Under his leadership, River has raised over $50 million in venture capital from some of the world's premier investors.
As CTO, he oversees River's investor relations, corporate strategy, and engineering.
He also writes about Bitcoin, engineering, security, and products for the firm's blog.
EARLY CAREER
As an engineer for Polychain Capital, he focused on Bitcoin investments and built a secure infrastructure for asset management.
He was a security software engineer for Airbnb, focused on AWS security, cryptography, and cost savings.
He was a business analyst for Deloitte, where he built interactive financial data visualizations for management at multiple Fortune 500 companies.
He landed his first job in Silicon Valley as a software engineer at Maicoin, Taiwan’s largest digital asset exchange.
He served as a teaching assistant at Stanford University and a research assistant at the University of Maryland.
MORE ABOUT LEISHMAN
Leishman became fascinated with the idea of non-governmental securities when he was still an undergraduate student.
He dreamt of building an institution that can provide financial services using a sound alternative to government-issued fiat currency.
He discovered Bitcoin shortly after graduating.
MEDIA & APPEARANCES
He has been quoted in Yahoo! Finance, Cointelegraph, CoinDesk, and Bitcoin Magazine.
He has appeared as a guest on Real Vision.