Larsen will continue to chair the board of directors
SAN FRANCISCO – November 1, 2016 – Ripple, the global provider of financial settlement solutions, today announced Chris Larsen has decided to transition from his operational role as chief executive officer of Ripple to executive chairman of Ripple’s board of directors. He has named Brad Garlinghouse his successor as CEO of Ripple, effective January 1, 2017.
As executive chairman of Ripple, Larsen will be responsible for leading the board of directors, strategic oversight of the business and identifying strategic partnership opportunities. He’ll remain the controlling shareholder of the company. Garlinghouse will take the helm as CEO after more than a year and a half as Ripple’s president and chief operating officer.
The change comes amid unprecedented growth in Ripple’s business. Ripple recently announced customer uptake from dozens of banks around the world, a successful trial of banks in R3’s consortium using XRP, $55 million in series B funding, more than 4 times growth in XRP average daily trade volume, and its founding role in the world’s first rules-based blockchain bank network (the Global Payments Steering Group).
“I’m grateful for the decades-long career I’ve had in Silicon Valley and look forward to taking a break from the day-to-day while staying highly involved in Ripple’s strategic direction,” said Larsen. “I feel good about making this change next year – the business is stronger than ever and we have such an obvious and capable choice for CEO in Brad Garlinghouse. Brad was central to driving the focus and rigor in our organization that’s fueled Ripple’s ascension.”
Garlinghouse said: “I’m honored to step into the role of CEO of Ripple and am grateful to work so closely with a visionary like Chris. I look forward to continuing to work with Chris and the board to set the strategic direction of the company. I could not have asked for a more talented, driven and creative group of people here at Ripple to work with side by side every day. I continue to be impressed by what this team has accomplished and look forward to taking Ripple to the next phase of growth.”
As president and chief operating officer, Brad built out Ripple’s organization to support a global enterprise software business, established operational excellence, and led more than 3.5 times growth in customer adoption. Brad was previously CEO of Hightail, where he doubled the company’s revenue in a highly competitive market.
Larsen’s decision follows a successful career as a serial fintech entrepreneur, dedicated to democratizing access to financial systems for people and businesses. He co-founded E-Loan in 1996, one of the first online mortgage lending platforms, whose business grew to a $1 billion market value by 2000. In 2006, Larsen co-founded Prosper Marketplace, the first peer-to-peer lending marketplace in the U.S. He co-founded Ripple in 2012 and has served as CEO and chairman of the board since.
As chief executive of Ripple, Larsen set forth the company’s vision to create an Internet of Value that will allow money to move like information moves on the web today, a vision which others across the blockchain industry have adopted. Under Larsen’s leadership, the company identified the market opportunity for blockchain technology with banks and then successfully drove global adoption. Ripple delivered the first enterprise blockchain solution to market, which dozens of banks around the world have since implemented. Through three rounds of fundraising, Ripple raised more than $93 million and built a global team of 135 across five offices.
About Ripple
Ripple provides global financial settlement solutions to ultimately enable the world to exchange value like it already exchanges information – giving rise to an Internet of Value (IoV). Ripple solutions lower the total cost of settlement by enabling banks to transact directly and with real-time certainty, optionally using the digital asset XRP to further reduce liquidity costs. Banks around the world are partnering with Ripple to improve their cross-border payment offerings, and to join its growing, global network of financial institutions and liquidity providers.
Ripple is a venture-backed startup with offices in San Francisco, New York, London, Sydney and Luxembourg. As an industry advocate for the Internet of Value, Ripple sits on the Federal Reserve’s Faster Payments Task Force Steering Committee and co-chairs the W3C’s Web Payments Working Group.