Wu said exclusive: Decoding Binance’s high-level power organizational structure: dual-headed system + Chinese executives

Who led Binance to become the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange (in terms of trading volume) in just three years? In addition to the well-known CZ and He Yi, who are the other executives and what is their organizational structure? How is it different from Huobi, which just disclosed its organizational structure?

In fact, Binance's organizational structure has never been fully disclosed to the public. Wu Blockchain has compiled a relatively accurate and clear Binance high-level power organizational structure based on public data statistics and surveys of insiders. If you need to check for omissions, please leave a message to propose corrections.

Changpeng Zhao: CEO and founder of Binance, managing all businesses, focusing on products, technology and internal affairs. Graduated from McGill University in Montreal, Canada with a degree in computer science. Previously served as head of futures research and development at Bloomberg and technical director of OKCoin.

He Yi: Serves as Binance CMO, managing brand marketing, user growth and key customer work. As a co-founder, he participates in strategic decision-making. He has served as a host of Travel Satellite TV, head of OKCoin marketing, and vice president of Yixia Technology.

Ted Lin: Chief Growth Officer, responsible for international business. He graduated from Cornell University with a master's degree in computer science and later worked for ASUS and several Taiwanese companies.

Wei Zhou: Chief Financial Officer (CFO), graduated from Harvard University, worked in the investment banking department of Goldman Sachs Hong Kong, and later served as an executive in Zhaopin.com, Joyo Games, and Kunlun Wanwei.

GIN CHAO: Chief Strategy Officer (CSO), responsible for investment and legal departments. He has worked in US sovereign wealth funds, Deutsche Bank, PricewaterhouseCoopers and other companies. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University.

Samuel Lim: Chief Compliance Officer, responsible for Binance’s stablecoin, security, combating crime, anti-money laundering, business compliance, and communication with regulatory authorities.

Helen Hai: Head of Binance Charity and Executive Director of Binance China Blockchain Research Institute. She graduated from the University of London and has many years of experience in charity work around the world. She has served as a member of the United Nations Business and Sustainable Development Committee.

Wu Blockchain believes that Binance’s organizational structure has the following characteristics:

First, Zhao Changpeng is the top manager. But Zhao Changpeng and He Yi are the only leaders who can be named as founders. He Yi is the second most important person in Binance after Zhao Changpeng and participates in the formulation of the company's strategic decisions.

Second, there are at least seven executives at the core level of Binance Group (including CZ and He Yi), and there may be several more that have not been disclosed. At present, only He Yi is of Chinese nationality, but including Zhao Changpeng, they are all of Chinese descent. It can be said that Binance is a company led by Chinese descent.

Third, due to the wide range of Binance businesses and the advocacy of distributed offices and decentralized management, the specific business level has become relatively loose, and there may be many omissions in the statistics. First, it should include the heads of various regions horizontally; secondly, it should include the heads of various business lines vertically.

(For more on Binance’s internal management style, please refer to the article “CZ has something to say about @CoinMarketCap”: http://suo.im/65PEyn)

Since Binance has acquired some companies, the heads of these companies have also become the heads of a certain business line. Wu said that blockchain only listed a few of the larger ones, and also included Jet, Swipe, travelbybit, etc.

Fourth, it is worth noting that Binance currently does not have a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) or Chief Product Officer (CPO), but each business line has its own technical director and product director. Since CZ is a CTO, he may be in charge of the technical work.

Comparing our high-level organizational structure with Huobi, we can find some similarities and differences. Please refer to "Exclusive: Former Alibaba executive Zhu Ye becomes Huobi's new CTO. All Huobi executives are exposed for the first time."

1: In terms of architectural features, compared with Huobi, Binance has a CMO of such a high level at the top, which may be the reason why Binance's market work is relatively diversified and has a larger investment ratio. At the same time, Huobi has a COO and the general manager of exchange business, which Binance does not have. Therefore, compared with Li Lin, CZ will be more hands-on in management.

2: In terms of key businesses, both exchanges have set up people specifically responsible for contracts and mining pools, which also shows the current emphasis on these two businesses within the exchange, especially contract derivatives, which are extremely important. In addition, the charity managers are in a relatively high position, indicating that the exchange attaches great importance to public welfare PR due to its special supervision.

3: In terms of internationalization, it is obvious from the structure of senior executives that Huobi focuses on the Japanese and Korean markets, while Binance focuses on the US, Europe, Russia and other markets, and there is a certain degree of differentiated competition. In addition, the vast majority of Huobi’s senior executives are Chinese executives, while Binance only has He Yi, which may be a natural obstacle to Huobi’s international promotion and Binance’s promotion in China.