Venture

Brex’s compliance head has left the fintech startup to join Andreessen Horowitz as a partner

Comment

Brex’s compliance head has left the fintech startup to join Andreessen Horowitz as a partner
Image Credits: Ali-Rathod-Papier / a16z

Ali Rathod-Papier has stepped down from her role as global head of compliance at corporate card expense management startup Brex to join venture firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as a partner and compliance officer, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.

Rathod-Papier and a16z declined to comment on the move.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Rathod-Papier now “oversees a16z’s foreign expansion and policy efforts, supporting the government affairs team, managing financial crime and national security risk, as well as overseas operations.” She was at Brex for a total of 2 ½ years, serving in a variety of roles, including head of financial crime compliance, before joining a16z in May.

Brex CFO Ben Gammell told TechCrunch that her departure was “amicable,” adding that Rathod-Papier “made invaluable contributions to financial management and compliance during her time at Brex” and that she helped position the startup “well for growth” in its next chapter.

Rathod-Papier shared the decision with colleagues in April, according to a Slack communication viewed by TechCrunch. A Brex spokesperson told TechCrunch this week that the startup is currently hiring a backfill for her role. In the meantime Bruce Wallace, a long-term advisor to Brex who has previously served as COO at Silicon Valley Bank and head of Risk & Fraud ops at Wells Fargo, has taken on the role of interim head of compliance.

The hiring comes at an interesting time for a16z, which had invested in Synapse, a banking-as-a-service startup which filed for bankruptcy in April and has since been under fire for an estimated $85 million worth of missing customer funds. The firm has been silent on the topic of the controversy around Synapse. TechCrunch spoke with a16z’s fintech leads and general partners Angela Strange and Anish Acharya in 2022 about the firm’s strategy in the space. The firm’s non-crypto high-profile fintech investments include Wise, Affirm, Deel and Greenlight, among others.

Meanwhile, TechCrunch also learned this week that Doug Adamic is no longer Brex’s chief revenue officer. The startup told us that Garrett Marker recently took his place as Brex’s new CRO. Marker most recently served as vice president of global sales at Braze, a cloud-based customer engagement platform for multichannel marketing.

Adamic had taken over as Brex’s CRO in May of 2022 after Sam Blond left, later joining Founders Fund as a partner, a role he ended up stepping down from earlier this year. Previously, Adamic had been with SAP Concur (a competitor of Brex’s) for over 16 years.

The moves come amidst an announcement by Brex that it has abandoned its co-CEO model with co-founder Pedro Franceschi becoming the sole CEO and co-founder Henrique Dubugras assuming the position of chairman of the board.

The pair told TechCrunch earlier this month that they believed that having two CEOs could be a bottleneck to the company’s growth by keeping its leadership from making faster decisions. They also feel like when Brex eventually does go public — something they don’t anticipate happening until 2025 or later — that investors will be more attracted to a traditional model of just one CEO running the company.

Interestingly, in June 2023, Jason Mok, a former a16z operating partner, joined Brex as head of startups.

Want more fintech news in your inbox? Sign up for TechCrunch Fintech here.

Want to reach out with a tip? Email me at maryann@techcrunch.com or send me a message on Signal at 408.204.3036. You can also send a note to the whole TechCrunch crew at tips@techcrunch.com. For more secure communications, click here to contact us, which includes SecureDrop (instructions here) and links to encrypted messaging apps.

More TechCrunch

Fisker is just a few days into its Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and the fight over its assets is already charged, with one lawyer claiming the startup has been liquidating assets…

The fight over Fisker’s assets is already heating up

A hacker is advertising customer data allegedly stolen from the Australia-based live events and ticketing company TEG on a well-known hacking forum. On Thursday, a hacker put up for sale…

Hacker claims to have 30 million customer records from Australian ticket seller giant TEG

Welcome to Startups Weekly — Haje‘s weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Friday. Elon…

Tesla makes Musk best-paid CEO of all time and Fisker bites the dust

Dot is a new AI companion and chatbot that thrives on getting to know your innermost thoughts and feelings.

Dot’s AI really, really wants to get to know you

The e-fuels startup is working on producing fuel for aviation and maritime shipping using carbon dioxide and other waste carbon streams.

E-fuels startup Aether Fuels is raising $34.3 million, per filing

Fisker was facing “potential financial distress” as early as last August, according to a new filing in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding, which the EV startup initiated earlier this week.…

Fisker faced financial distress as early as last August

Cruise, the self-driving subsidiary of General Motors, has agreed to pay a $112,500 fine for failing to provide full information about an accident involving one of its robotaxis last year.…

Cruise clears key hurdle to getting robotaxis back on roads in California

Feel Therapeutics has a pretty original deck, with some twists we rarely see; the company did a great job telling the overall story.

Pitch Deck Teardown: Feel Therapeutics’ $3.5M seed deck

The Rockset buy fits into OpenAI’s broader recent strategy of investing heavily in its enterprise sales and tech orgs.

OpenAI buys Rockset to bolster its enterprise AI

The U.S. government announced sanctions against 12 executives and senior leaders of the Russia-based cybersecurity giant Kaspersky. In a press release, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets…

US government sanctions Kaspersky executives

Style DNA, an AI-powered fashion stylist app, creates a personalized style profile from a single selfie. The app is particularly useful for people interested in seasonal color analysis, a process…

Style DNA gets a generative AI chatbot that suggests outfit ideas based on your color type

Rates of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts are surging among U.S. teens. A recent report from the Center of Disease Control found that nearly one in three girls have seriously…

Khosla-backed Marble, built by former Headway founders, offers affordable group therapy for teens

Cover says what sets it apart is the underlying technology it employs, which has been exclusively licensed from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

A new startup from Figure’s founder is licensing NASA tech in a bid to curb school shootings

Spotify is introducing a new “Basic” streaming plan in the United States, the company announced on Friday. The new plan costs $10.99 per month and includes all of the benefits…

Spotify launches a new Basic streaming plan in the US

Photographers say the social media giant is applying a ‘Made with AI’ label to photos they took, causing confusion for users.

Meta is tagging real photos as ‘Made with AI,’ say photographers

Website building platform Squarespace is selling Tock, its restaurant reservation service, to American Express in a deal worth $400 million — the exact figure that Squarespace paid for the service…

Squarespace sells restaurant reservation system Tock to American Express for $400M

Featured Article

Change Healthcare confirms ransomware hackers stole medical records on a ‘substantial proportion’ of Americans

The February ransomware attack on UHG-owned Change Healthcare stands as one of the largest-ever known digital thefts of U.S. medical records.

19 hours ago
Change Healthcare confirms ransomware hackers stole medical records on a ‘substantial proportion’ of Americans

Google said today that it globally paused its experiment that aimed to allow new kinds of real-money games on the Play Store, citing the challenges that come with the lack…

Google pauses its experiment to expand real-money games on the Play Store

Venture firms raised $9.3 billion in Q1 according to PitchBook data, which means this year likely won’t match or surpass 2023’s $81.8 billion total. While emerging managers are feeling the…

Kevin Hartz’s A* raises its second oversubscribed fund in three years

Google is making reviews of all your movies, TV shows, books, albums and games visible under one profile page starting June 24, according to an email sent to users last…

Google is making your movie and TV reviews visible under a new profile page

Zepto, an Indian quick commerce startup, has more than doubled its valuation to $3.6 billion in a new funding round of $665 million.

Zepto, a 10-minute delivery app, raises $665M at $3.6B valuation

Speak, the AI-powered language learning app, has raised new money from investors at double its previous valuation.

Language learning app Speak nets $20M, doubles valuation

SpaceX unveiled Starlink Mini, a more portable version of its satellite internet product that is small enough to fit inside a backpack.  Early Starlink customers were invited to purchase the…

SpaceX debuts portable Starlink Mini for $599

Ali Rathod-Papier has stepped down from her role as global head of compliance at corporate card expense management startup Brex to join venture firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as a partner…

Brex’s compliance head has left the fintech startup to join Andreessen Horowitz as a partner
Image Credits: Ali-Rathod-Papier / a16z

U.S. officials imposed the “first of its kind” ban arguing that Kaspersky threatens U.S. national security because of its links to Russia.

US bans sale of Kaspersky software citing security risk from Russia 

Apple has released Final Cut Pro for iPad 2 and Final Cut Camera, the company announced on Thursday. Both apps were previously announced during the company’s iPad event in May.…

Apple releases Final Cut Pro for iPad 2 and Final Cut Camera

Paris has quickly established itself as a major European center for AI startups, and now another big deal is in the works.

Poolside is raising $400M+ at a $2B valuation to build a supercharged coding co-pilot

The space industry is all abuzz about how SpaceX’s Starship, Blue Origin’s New Glenn, and other heavy-lift rockets will change just about everything. One likely consequence is that spacecraft will…

Gravitics prepares a testing gauntlet for a new generation of giant spacecraft

LTK (formerly LiketoKnow.it and RewardStyle), the influencer shopping app with 40 million monthly users, announced on Thursday the launch of a free direct message tool for creators to instantly share…

Influencer shopping app LTK gets an automatic direct message tool

YouTube appears to be taking a firm stance against Premium subscribers who attempt to use a VPN (virtual private network) to access cheaper subscription prices in other countries. This week,…

YouTube confirms crackdown on VPN users accessing cheaper Premium plans