Work

Fintech: Brex

Brex is the largest modern corporate card and spend management platform — loved by global and distributed teams, from startup to enterprise. We’re reimagining financial systems so every growing company can realize its full potential.

Please contact me to learn more about my work at Brex.

Fintech: Robinhood

Robinhood is a brokerage platform which offers commission-free trading. Through the Robinhood app, customers can buy, sell, and trade stocks, ETFs, options, and crypto.

For roughly two years, my team & I built in-app education for first-time investors.

The Verge wrote about our work here.

During my time as a “Hoodie,” I also:

• Revamped Robinhood’s options trading education,
• Crafted crisis comms that went out to literally every customer (e.g., during the March 2020 stock market meltdown), and
• Developed a methodology & visual system for labeling higher-risk investments (e.g., leveraged ETFs).

I’m very proud of this work.

_{^Also, if you’re a fellow finance nerd, you might appreciate this: I own a first edition of Margin of Safety by Seth Klarman.}

Media: Quartz

Before immersing myself in UX and content design, I was a finance journalist and I specialized in cryptocurrency coverage.¹

At Quartz, I launched the company’s first paid newsletter, Private Key, which explored the ins and outs of crypto. I taught a beginner and intermediate audience about the hacks, scams, and capers that make crypto both thrilling… and sketchy.²

I also wrote critiques of Facebook’s Libra, the company’s misguided foray intro crypto.³

And I was the first reporter to highlight TikTok’s apparent censorship of the Hong Kong protests. (Others, like the WaPo, followed.)

_{1. To maintain my journalistic integrity—and avoid complicated tax returns—I only owned a meager amount of cryptocurrency. (Never more than $1,000.)}

_{2. Not gonna lie, it was pretty exciting when the Wall Street Journal wrote about our newsletter’s launch & media strategy.}

_{3. Facebook rebranded as Meta, and Libra eventually rebranded as Novi.}

Media: ETHNews

At ETHNews, I focused my coverage on cryptocurrency regulation and my reporting was closely followed by industry leaders.¹

Starting in 2017, I interviewed founders from the world’s biggest crypto projects, including Ethereum, Ripple, and Zcash. I was one of the first people writing about the initial coin offering (ICO) phenomenon and the “Howey Test.”

_{1. Like many crypto companies, ETHNews is no longer around.}

_{^Crypto remains fascinating—at least economically—but the vast majority of blockchain-based projects haven’t delivered on their promises.}

Government: The SEC

The SEC is the US stock market regulator. Its mission is “to protect investors; maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and facilitate capital formation.” The agency “strives to promote a market environment that is worthy of the public’s trust.”

I interned for the US Securities & Exchange Commission in 2015, and that experience shaped my interest in finance. While supporting the Office of International Affairs, I was inspired by the role that the agency plays in investor protection.

_{^At some point, I’ll write a blog post about the college course that supercharged my interest in the stock market: FINC-150, or the Fundamentals of Finance.}