Share this article
Binance Hires Big-Name Former Government Officials to Set Up Advisory Board
The exchange adds ex-French Treasury head Bruno Bézard, Barack Obama’s former political guru David Plouffe and several others to global group of advisers
Updated May 11, 2023, 3:38 p.m. Published Sep 22, 2022, 9:00 a.m.
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, has rounded up prominent former government officials to act as a global board of advisers as the company negotiates the regulatory and political minefield the crypto industry finds itself in.
The board – led by Max Baucus, a former U.S. Senate Finance Committee chairman and ambassador to China – also includes David Wright, a former secretary general of the International Organization of Securities Commissions; Bruno Bézard, a former head of the French Treasury and economic adviser to the prime minister; Henrique de Campos Meirelles, Brazil’s former minister of the economy and one-time president of its central bank; and seven others.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
“We're supercharging our ability to manage regulatory complexity by tapping into the highest level of expertise available anywhere in the world,” Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao said in a statement about the group’s members, some of whom have been previously announced. They’ll advise the company on regulatory, political and social matters, the company said, without offering any specific issues they’ll tackle.
The board, which recently met in Paris for the first time, will include a number of well-connected advisers from many of the jurisdictions Binance operates in. Binance had already hired Baucus, a longtime Montana senator, last year as a government adviser. Additional members include:
- David Plouffe, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama
- Edward Vaizey, a member of the U.K.’s House of Lords who was a former minister of state for culture and the digital economy
- Christin Schäfer, a former banker in Germany who founded a data consulting firm
- Adalberto Palma Gómez, a former Mexican Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV) president, whose arrival had previously been announced
- Ibukun Awosika, the first woman to chair the First Bank of Nigeria
- HyungRin Bang, a former executive director of Samsung and Hyundai that works as a political adviser in Korea
- Leslie Maasdorp, a vice president and CFO of the New Development Bank who previously worked in the government of South Africa and with Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Barclays
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
U.S. Senate's Crypto Market Structure Bill Gets Messy as Calendar Weighs Down
The White House has shut down proposals, and lawmakers are circulating the Democrats' asks in what had been a close negotiation, revealing 11th-hour pressure.
What to know:
- Democrats shared a response to Republicans outlining their continuing priorities for a crypto market structure bill, which they said was intended to "reach an agreement and proceed towards a mark-up."
- The document laid out concerns with financial stability, market integrity and public officials' ability to trade and profit off of crypto, echoing concerns laid out in a framework Democrats shared in September.
- The Senate is running out of time in the Congressional calendar to hold a markup hearing — a key step toward progressing the bill — before 2025 ends.
Top Stories
