Charles Schwab advisor joins crypto startup Coinbase’s board of directors

Crypto exchange Coinbase has announced that Chris Dodds, who serves on the Board of Directors of The Charles Schwab Corporation and as a senior private equity advisor, has joined the company’s Board of Directors.

Dodds will bring his extensive knowledge of the financial services industry, and significant financial and accounting experience to Coinbase.

During his 21-year stint at Schwab, Dodds held a variety of financial positions in treasury, corporate development, and financial planning and analysis. He transitioned to serving as a Director of Schwab Bank in 2007 and joined the Board of The Charles Schwab Corporation in 2014, where he serves as Chairman of the Risk Committee.

In 2008, Chris became a senior advisor in the Financial Services practice at The Carlyle Group, a private equity firm. After 10 years there, he transitioned to The Cynosure Group, another private equity firm, where he currently serves as a senior advisor.

“His [Dodds] addition to the Coinbase board is part of our effort to expand our financial services capabilities as we head into this next chapter for the company and the cryptocurrency industry as a whole,” Brian Armstrong, CEO and Co-founder at Coinbase said.

In the past couple of weeks, Coinbase has made a number of new appointments which includes Jeff Horowitz as chief compliance officer, Tim Wagner as vice president of engineering, and Michael Li as VP of data, among others.

In a separate blog post, Armstrong said that Coinbase invested in nine more companies including Horizon Games, Coinmine and Public Market in Q3 2018. The company has also acquired Distributed Systems and officially closed the Keystone acquisition in the third quarter.