Former Shopify COO Kaz Nejatian continues to poach Canadian tech talent.
Coinbase Canada CEO Lucas Matheson will leave the cryptocurrency exchange this week to join San Francisco-based tech firm Opendoor as president, becoming the latest in a string of Shopify graduates to jump ship to the Silicon Valley company.
“I had the opportunity to work with Kaz [Nejatian] at Shopify and couldn’t imagine a better leader to bring Opendoor back into founder mode and rebuild the company.”
Lucas Matheson, Coinbase
In his new role, Matheson will oversee Opendoor's corporate development, financial planning and analysis, and explore strategic initiatives, including how blockchain technology and tokenization can create new paths to homeownership, the company said in a statement.
“Real estate is one of the last major asset classes untouched by the financial innovation happening everywhere,” Matheson said in a statement. “Opendoor has already proven that it can reimagine the way people buy and sell homes. I'm here to help deliver what's next.”
Matheson led Coinbase Canada for three years. protection for the company cryptocurrency interests and make it the first international cryptocurrency exchange to obtain a limited dealer license in the country.
IN X postMatheson called his time at Coinbase “the opportunity of a lifetime,” thanking his team as well as regulators such as the Canadian Securities Administrators, Investment Regulators of Canada, Treasury, Bank of Canada and “elected officials who stepped up to embrace the future and recognize the transformative potential of blockchain.”
When asked who would now lead Coinbase's Canadian operations, or whether the company would be looking for a replacement, a company spokesperson told BetaKit in an email that “interim leadership is in place.”
“Coinbase continues to conduct business as usual and is committed to serving the Canadian market and continuing to work with local partners and stakeholders,” the spokesperson said.
Prior to Coinbase, Matheson spent five years as senior director of operations at Shopify. In this role, he led Shopify's mergers and acquisitions, strategic expansion, and corporate financial planning and analysis.
Matheson also worked with former Shopify chief executive Kaz Nezhatian, who left Canada's largest tech company to become CEO of Opendoor in September last year after GameStop style trading period led by retail investors. Since then Nejatyan doubled from a populist perspective, parting ways with external relations agencies Opendoor in favor of using X to communicate directly with its investors, and indicated that Opendoor will look to open an office in Toronto.
CONNECTED: Kaz Nejatyan Brings His Former “Deputy” at Shopify to Opendoor
“I had the opportunity to work with Kaz at Shopify, and I couldn’t imagine a better leader to bring Opendoor back into founder mode and rebuild the company and product,” Matheson said in his report. X post.
“He was often the smartest person in the room when I worked with him at Shopify, and his work as head of Coinbase is clearly exceptional,” Nejatian said of Matheson in his own book. X post.
In recent months, Nejatyan has recruited many former and current Shopify alumni to his new business. Roach Capital Principal Fahd Ananta, Former Product Manager at Shopify, Joins Opendoor almost immediately after Nejatyan. A few weeks later, Nejatyan knocked on his former “deputy commander” Shopify Vice President of Operations Jung LeGrice will lead operations for his company.
In a statement, Nejatyan said his job is to “find the best person for every position.”
“This is a team working on the next version of Opendoor, built for speed, clarity and impact,” Nejatian said. “Every day we don't make real progress is a day we don't make home ownership better. We're not going to waste days.”
Disclosure: Good Future, the majority owner of BetaKit, is the family office of two former Shopify leaders, Arati Sharma and Satish Kanwar.
Image courtesy of Coinbase.
