About

Youssef gained his first experience as a venture intern at Qatar Development Bank, where he focused on market screening for the EMEA region. This experience led him to pursue a Master’s in Corporate Finance at HEC Lausanne.

He became familiar with cryptocurrencies in 2017, and his interest in DeFi sparked with its boom in 2020, where he delved deeper into the subject while participating in an exchange program in Japan. During this time, he attended multiple blockchain-related events and took elective courses to enhance his expertise in this ecosystem.

Youssef graduated with a Master's degree in Finance, specializing in Corporate Finance, from HEC Lausanne. During his studies, he joined AtmosClear Investments, where he applied his knowledge practically. In this internship, he strengthened his financial modeling skills, screened potential investment opportunities, and assisted in due diligence processes. He also enrolled in the CFA Research Challenge.

While attending a Japanese language school during his second time in Japan, Youssef participated in a selective venture training and scouting program provided by Headline Asia, where he was a finalist.

Outside of his professional career, Youssef is an avid scuba diver and enjoys listening to anything jazz-related. He is currently based in Japan and keeps strong ties with Switzerland.

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Christian previously worked in the legal unit of ARM Holdco, a leading investment firm in West Africa with approximately $2 billion AUM. He provided legal advisory, due diligence, and support for both traditional asset management and specialized funds businesses. During his time at ARM, Christian successfully advised on and executed transactions exceeding $8 million.

Christian began his involvement in the web3 space as a researcher and writer, eventually leading him to contribute to several DAOs including Push DAO and LexDAO, where he has driven key governance optimization and growth initiatives. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Law from the University of Nigeria, with a specialization in corporate, finance, and securities law. Currently, Christian is a candidate at the Nigerian Law School, working towards obtaining his practicing license.

In his free time, Christian enjoys calisthenics and he is currently based in Nigeria.

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Dennis has an extensive background in law with a PhD focusing on the intersection of capital markets law and behavioral finance. He has worked for prestigious US law firms such as Quinn Emanuel and Milbank, as well as the top-tier German VC law firm YPOG. Dennis has also run his own legal practice, advising Web2 and Web3 companies, as well as investors, primarily on corporate law matters.

In addition to his legal career, Dennis has co-founded and worked for startups across diverse sectors, from packaging and FMCG, natural language processing and artificial intelligence to crypto.

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Previously, Russell gained work experience in M&A and capital markets within the SEA IB team at UBS and private investment at Azalea. His interest in Web3 began when he came across tokenisation opportunities for private fund investments and real estate. Outside of his professional career, Russell is a licensed aviator and a competitive Squash player. Russell graduated from the National University of Singapore with a degree in Real Estate and a specialisation in Finance.

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Prior to Areta, Joseph was an investor at Superscrypt, a crypto-native venture capital firm founded by Temasek. At Superscrypt, he focused on the origination and execution of pre-seed to Series A/B investments, and supported portfolio companies on key strategic initiatives.

Before commencing his career in web3, Joseph was an Associate Director at UBS Investment Banking in Asia, where he focused on the end-to-end execution of M&A and capital markets transactions, primarily in the consumer retail & technology sectors. During his time at UBS, he successfully completed 15+ deals with over US$10bn in aggregate transaction value.

Joseph has a Bachelor of Business Administration (Finance) with Honours (Highest Distinction) from National University of Singapore. He is currently based in Singapore.

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Before joining Areta, Teresa worked as an investment banking analyst at J.P. Morgan in the Latin America division based in Buenos Aires for almost two years. Prior to that, she worked as a financial analyst at Accenture (Argentina) in a team focused on developing total shareholder return covering several industries. Before her time at Accenture, she interned as a financial advisor at Abante Asesores (Spain), analyzing clients' portfolios while completing her studies.

Teresa holds a Bachelor Degree in Business Administration and Management from Universidad Pontificia Comillas - ICADE (Spain), with a specialization in Finance. During university, she studied abroad at Marquette University (USA) and participated in the AIM program, which involved managing an investment fund of over US$3mm certified by the CFA Institute.

In her free time, Teresa enjoys playing tennis and she is currently based between Madrid, Lisbon and Buenos Aires.

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Previously, Timothy worked as an investment analyst at Swiss Ventures Group and Serpentine Ventures, which are part of a privately financed group known for being one of Switzerland's most active early-stage investors in ICT. An entrepreneur at heart, Timothy founded his own venture and participated in the international expansion of Hive, a German scaleup.

Timothy graduated from the University of St. Gallen with a degree in Business and Administration, specializing in Finance. During his studies, he was also very active in the consulting space, providing fundraising advisory support to startups.

Previously, Findlay worked as a ventures analyst for Delphi Digital, where he completed due diligence and deal origination across all facets of the web3 world. His interest in web3 began when he started sharing his research on a blog, diving into a few of the most relevant topics in the space at the time. Outside of his professional career, Findlay competes on the Canadian national field hockey team where his accomplishments include competing in the Olympics in Tokyo in 2020 and a bronze medal at the Pan American Games in 2023.

Findlay graduated from the Sauder School of Business with a specialization in Finance in British Columbia, Canada. During his undergraduate studies, he was awarded the Academic All-Canadian award three times for his excellence in academics as well as sports.

Sid co-leads Areta’s Strategic Governance team and has deep experience in both the digital asset and traditional finance spaces, having been involved in the blockchain space since 2017.

As a Digital Assets Strategy Manager at Motive Partners, Sid focused on innovation strategy and value creation with respect to Motive's portfolio companies and external clients, while evaluating Web3 start-ups and established companies for early-stage investments or buyout deals. Within the Global Blockchain Team at Accenture for 5 years, Sid focused on digital asset strategy projects across financial markets, working with commercial and retail banks, central banks, and financial market infrastructure players.

Sid has a Master's in Finance degree from the London Business School, where he was the Co-President of the LBS Blockchain Society for 2023-24 and led the society’s Aave delegation from October 2022 to February 2024. His crypto expertise and depth of relationships across the ecosystem are also demonstrated by his Web3 blog and podcast, Genesis Block.

Yacine brings a wealth of expertise to his role as Vice President of Investment Banking, with a focus on mergers and acquisitions. His recent tenure in Strategy at CoinMENA saw him driving strategic initiatives, contributing significantly to the firm’s growth in the region.

Prior to CoinMENA, Yacine honed his investment banking skills at J.P. Morgan in London and Lazard in Paris, where he specialized in M&A advisory services within the Technology Team.

Yacine holds a Master's in Finance from EDHEC in Paris.

Before dedicating his career to the web3 space, Karl worked at The Blackstone Group in the New York and London Private Equity Teams. He learned to breath investment banking at JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank. His love for finance and dedication to performing financial services at the highest possible standards are the driving force behind his mission to establish Areta as the household name for the crypto space, similar to his previous employers in the traditional world.

Karl graduated with Distinction from the London School of Economics in Finance and Private Equity and as a PROMOS scholar from the University of Mannheim. He will be forever grateful for the year he got to spend with his guest family in Argentina early in his life.

Bernard heads Areta’s Strategic Governance unit working with some of the leading DAOs and foundations in the space working on large-scale governance and growth initiatives from governance inception to optimization and ecosystem growth.

Prior to Areta, Bernard spent his time in Management Consulting at McKinsey & Company across London and Berlin, where he led business building projects and growth initiatives for tech scale-ups and S&P 500 companies. Prior to this, he was involved in scaling early- and growth-stage ventures on the founder and investor side.

Bernard holds a Master’s in Business from London School of Economics and spends his time between San Francisco, Lisbon, and Berlin.

Since he first discovered the web3 space, Jan-Philip has been extremely fascinated about the emergence of a new asset class and an opportunity to reengineer the financial industry. Combining his passion for finance and tech, he moved full-time into the industry to found Areta with a vision of establishing the leading financial institution in the blockchain-enabled era.

Prior to Areta, Jan-Philip was a private equity investor at Blackstone, the world's largest alternative asset manager with >$1 trillion AUM, and gained experience at Boston Consulting Group, Partners Group, and Barclays Investment Bank. He earned his M.A. in Finance from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland and a B.Sc. in Business Information Technology from the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management with scholarships from Konrad Adenauer and Schmalenbach foundations.

Jan-Philip loves football and water sports, and spends most of his time between Lisbon and London.