OpenSea CFO quits after 10 months in the job
The chief financial officer of nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea, Brian Roberts, has become the latest high-profile Web3 executive to leave his role amid the current bear market, leaving after just 10 months in the role.
In an Oct. 7 post on LinkedIn, the former CFO of ride-share platform Lyft and OpenSea said it was time for him to “come ashore” from the “open sea,” but did not give the exact reasons for the change , only that he would remain as an adviser to the company going forward.
Roberts was named CFO in December 2021 after working at Lyft for seven years. He has also had previous stints in corporate roles at US retail giant Walmart and technology company Mircosoft.
Roberts was among a long line of tech veterans to jump to Web3 in recent years, including former Google vice president Surojit Chatterjee, who became Coinbase’s chief product officer in 2020, and Amazon’s Pravjit Tiwana, who became CTO of Gemini at Janua. 2022.
One of his core tasks during his time at OpenSea was to expand the finance team. In his Linkedin post, Roberts noted:
“I had the rare opportunity to build a team literally from the ground up and handpick players.”
According to his statement, he has been working closely with CEO Devin Finzer and vice president of strategic finance Justin Jow to ensure a “smooth transition,” possibly indicating that Jow will step up and take over the newly vacant leadership role.
Despite stepping down from the CFO role, Roberts maintains he remains “incredibly bullish on web3.”
Notably, Roberts’ departure came on the same day that another OpenSea executive announced his departure.
In a LinkedIn post on October 7, Ryan Foutty, vice president of business development at OpenSea, announced that he was leaving the firm after 18 months.
Foutty said the company had come a long way since working from co-founder Alex Atallah’s basement and wished his “crewmates” well.
Related: OpenSea to allow users to submit bulk NFT listings and purchases
Both Roberts and Foutty are just the latest crypto executives to leave their current roles amid the market downturn.
NFT trading volume has plunged 98% from the $6.2 billion observed around the end of January to $114.4 million.
The NFT market has also suffered setbacks, including cutting 20% of staff in July, and significant drops in daily trading volume.
The entire market took a sharp fall off a cliff in May with the start of an ongoing crypto bear market.
Other high-profile executives announcing departures from their firms include FTX US President Brett Harrison, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell, MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor and Genesis Trading CEO Michael Moro.
Update: Correction of the number of months Brian Roberts held the position of CFO in OpenSea.
