The UK and European affiliate of Gemini Trust Company has announced the appointment of Blair Halliday as Chief Compliance Officer and Money Laundering Reporting Officer.
The cryptocurrency exchange and custodian led by the Winklevoss twins chose Halliday to oversee the strategic direction of Gemini’s compliance program in the U.K. and Europe, an emerging region for the company. He will be based in London and report directly to Gemini’s Managing Director of the U.K. and Europe.
By managing day-to-day regulatory relationships and requirements, Halliday will ensure Gemini’s continued commitment to adhering to all relevant regulatory guidelines. His experience includes 14 years in various financial crime roles at Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), where he began his career. He was also Executive Director of Financial Crime and Compliance at CashFlows as well as Chief Compliance Officer at the International Currency Exchange (ICE).
He specialized in crypto when he joined cryptocurrency platform Circle, where he served as the company’s Chief Compliance Officer for the EMEA region. In this role, he led the remediation and renewal of the company’s global anti-money laundering (AML) program. He was also tasked with driving key changes to strengthen Circle’s AML regime ahead of product launches and new market entry. Now, at Gemini’s growing European operation, he follows recent hires such as Noah Perlman as Chief Compliance Officer, David Damato as Chief Security Officer, Sydney Schaub as General Counsel, Jeanine Hightower-Sellitto as Managing Director, Operations, and Robert Cornish as Chief Technology Officer. Sawyer was also recently named Managing Director of the U.K. and Europe.
Julian Sawyer, Gemini’s Managing Director of UK and Europe, commented: “As we build our team, Gemini is primed for significant growth in Europe this year. As we continuously iterate on our technology and offering, maintaining compliance and operating within, not around, all relevant legal frameworks will always be our top priority. Blair’s deep domain expertise makes him uniquely poised to drive Gemini’s compliance efforts in the UK. His leadership will be critical in our mission to work with regulators to promote smart frameworks that encourage growth in the crypto industry.”
In late 2019, the leading cryptocurrency exchange and custodian partnered with BSO to offer the firm’s Crypto Connect network, which provides specialist solutions for both institutional clients, who require the same high-quality access to Gemini as they do for other traditional asset class exchanges, as well as the demanding crypto community. The Ethernet network delivers guaranteed latency on layer two backbone with high security and enables Public cloud & private infrastructures inter-connectivity over 240 PoPs via its private, internet avoiding, dedicated & guaranteed latency backbone worldwide.
