Marieke Flament

Marieke Flament is the CEO of the NEAR Foundation, a non-for-profit which is responsible for contracting protocol maintainers, funding ecosystem development, and managing core governance of the NEAR protocol – the world's fastest-growing, carbon-neutral and open-source blockchain. Marieke is a French-born computer engineer who has worked across the globe in a diverse range of companies from the luxury giant LVMH of Louis Vuitton fame to Boston Consulting Group and Expedia’s Hotels.com and crypto giant Circle. At Hotels.com she was in charge of Europe, Middle East and Africa Region, a $2bn P&L. In her last role she was Managing Director of Europe and Global CMO for Circle, one of the largest crypto company. At Circle she pioneered the consumer application of blockchain taking to market several products, building from scratch a user base of over 2M users in less than 2 years. She also helped move the blockchain agenda forward working with key decision makers, including governments and financial policy makers across Europe. Marieke is an advocate for diversity and inclusion in finance and technology. Under her leadership, Circle was the first FinTech to sign HMT’s Women in Finance Charter and achieve a 50-50 gender split in the sector. She was recognised in the Women in FinTech Powerlist for 2017 and 2019 and she is frequently quoted by the press; including The BBC, The Telegraph, Fortune, The Financial Times, Reuters, Forbes, and City AM. Marieke holds a Masters in Computer Science from TelecomParisTech and Shanghai Jiaotong University, and an MBA from London Business School. One of Marieke’s favourite phrases and a principle she lives by: “Optimism is a force multiplier”