Ali Rathod-Papier has left her position as global head of compliance at the corporate card expense management startup Brex to join venture firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as a partner and compliance officer, TechCrunch exclusively reports.
Both Rathod-Papier and a16z have declined to comment on this transition.
Rathod-Papier’s LinkedIn profile indicates that she now oversees a16z’s foreign expansion and policy efforts, supports the government affairs team, manages financial crime and national security risk, and handles overseas operations. She spent 2 ½ years at Brex in various roles, including head of financial crime compliance, before joining a16z in May.
Brex CFO Ben Gammell described her departure as “amicable,” highlighting her invaluable contributions to financial management and compliance, which helped position the startup for its next growth phase.
Rathod-Papier informed colleagues of her decision in April via a Slack message, viewed by TechCrunch. A Brex spokesperson confirmed that the company is currently hiring her replacement. In the interim, Bruce Wallace, a long-term advisor to Brex and former COO at Silicon Valley Bank, as well as head of risk and fraud operations at Wells Fargo, has taken on the role of interim head of compliance.
This hiring comes at a notable time for a16z, which had invested in Synapse, a banking-as-a-service startup that filed for bankruptcy in April and has been under scrutiny for an estimated $85 million in missing customer funds. a16z has remained silent on the Synapse controversy. In 2022, TechCrunch interviewed a16z’s fintech leads, general partners Angela Strange and Anish Acharya, about the firm’s strategy in the space. a16z’s prominent non-crypto fintech investments include Wise, Affirm, Deel, and Greenlight.
TechCrunch also learned that Doug Adamic is no longer Brex’s chief revenue officer. Garrett Marker, formerly vice president of global sales at Braze, has taken over as Brex’s new CRO. Adamic had been with Brex since May 2022, following a long tenure at SAP Concur.
These leadership changes follow Brex’s announcement to abandon its co-CEO model, with co-founder Pedro Franchesci becoming the sole CEO and co-founder Henrique Dubugras taking on the role of chairman of the board. They explained to TechCrunch that having two CEOs could slow down decision-making and that a single-CEO model would be more appealing to investors when Brex goes public, anticipated in 2025 or later.
Interestingly, in June 2023, Jason Mok, a former a16z operating partner, joined Brex as head of startups.
Source: techcrunch.com
