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In this conversation, we chat with Mona El Isa, the co-founder of Enzyme, one of the industry’s leading decentralised asset management protocols, and founder and CEO at Avantgarde Finance. She is also President of MAMA (Multichain Asset Managers Association), and was nominated Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum and Digital Shaper in Bilanz magazine.
Mona is a former star-trader at Goldman Sachs, promoted to Vice President by the age of 26 and made the “Top 30 under 30” list in Trader Magazine in 2008 and Forbes Magazine in 2011 after profitably trading the 2008 and 2011 crashes. She moved to Geneva-based macro fund Jabre Capital in 2011, before deciding in 2014 that the future of finance lay in blockchain technology. She studied Economics & Statistics at University College London.
More specifically, we touch on the magnificent and harrowing journey from institutional finance during the financial crisis, to family office portfolio management, to multiple attempts at Web3 and DeFi. Mona has been through some incredible successes, as well as, harsh failures. Give this one a listen!
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Sneak Peek:
Lex Sokolin:
…that's very raw. So, thank you for sharing that. I think a lot of entrepreneurs have raw experiences, but to be so powerless and caught in the overall market cycle is really difficult.
Mona El Isa:
I was just going to say, I think we've learned a lot from that. In hindsight, as a trader, I should have probably known better and been more vocal about managing our treasury more efficiently in the good times. I think there's something very different to when you dedicate your life to building a protocol where you get very emotionally entangled. You fall in love with your vision in a way. Anytime emotions are involved, in my case, I'm definitely very passionate about what I do, I think the investment decisions around your own token can be more difficult to see in a more sort of balanced view.
And so, I think where we've gotten a lot stronger now in this bull market is managing our treasury better, trying to educate other DAOs and treasurers on managing their treasury better because a lot of people didn't survive. And for even those that did, I was just talking to Kane from Synthetics a few months ago about this. I was so involved in our own problems; I didn't realize that they almost didn't make it as well. You're sort of left with scars after something like that, and you'll do everything in your power to make sure it doesn't happen again. With Enzyme, we're also trying to solve a big treasury management problem for DAOs as well.
More? So much more!
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