Round 2...Fight!
In this post I'll cover the CEOs and Co-founders of Monaco, TenX and Centra. I had originally planned to cover the staff members for all 3 cards and post the writeup on Centra (I've been asked a couple times) at the same time, but in the interest of my hands I've decided to instead break it up into 3 posts with the CEOs and founders + a bit about Centra in this post, a post covering the rest of the key positions for each card, and a followup for Centra.
Getting right into it (with lots of linkedin quotes):
Kris Marszalek - Monaco
Seasoned entrepreneur, prior to Monaco, three-times founder in tech space (e-commerce, mobile LBS app, consumer electronics). Two companies from zero to ~$100m in revenues, two exits. Passionate about working with great teams on consumer products.
Specialties: strategy, company building, startups, talent management, product development, financing, general management.
- Co-founder and Senior VP @ Starline Group | Oct 2004 to Oct 2009
- Co-founder & CEO @ YIYI Hong Kong Ltd. | Nov 2009 - Jul 2010
- Co-founder & CEO | BEECRAZY | Jul 2010 - Mar 2014
- COO @ iBuy Group Ltd. | Apr 2014 - Aug 2014
- CEO @ Ensogo | Aug 2014 - Jun 2016
- Co-founder & CEO @ Foris Limited | Jun 2016 to Present
- Co-founder & CEO @ Monaco | Jun 2016 to Present
Starline Group:
Consumer Electronics design & manufacturing business with offices in Hong Kong, China and Poland. Grew the company from 3 staff to 400 and from $0 to $81M in revenue is 3 years.
YIYI Hong Kong Ltd.:
Innovative LBS mobile application and platform, developed together with Munich-based Aloqa, which was acquired by Motorola in 2010.
BEECRAZY:
A deals platform that was acquired by iBuy Group in 2013
iBuy Group Ltd. & Ensogo:
iBuy Group was listed on ASX in December 2013, subsequently rebranded to Ensogo. This is where we get into a bit of hot water, Ensogo on the 21st of June 2016 announced that it would shut down all South East Asia operations (HK included) and Kris resigned, the shutdown was due to a few key factors, most notably the impact of "deal fatigue" on the entire market which then lead to a change in business model - unfortunately it wasn't soon enough and the competition had a pretty good head start, Alibaba buying a controlling stake in their main competitor for $1B wasn't making things any easier (Lazada was also facing similar problems before Alibaba came into the picture - grossed $191M in sales but lost $233M for the same period). This combination of factors most likely resulted in the decision to preserve the company's cash for "new investment opportunities" which makes sense considering the situation Ensogo was in.
Foris Ltd. & Monaco:
Both were founded the same month Kris left Ensogo, and since then both have been doing quite well. Monaco we already know about from my last post so I'll go a bit more into Foris.
Firstly, they are working on using the blockchain to build "innovative consumer apps" with areas of expertise listed as iOS/Android development, UI/UX, and smart contract development.
Second, they were accepted into the Cyberport Incubation Programme in March of 2017 and selected as one of the 8 startups to join FinTech SuperCharger 2017 (Asia's leading fintech accelerator, backed by Standard Chartered Bank, Fidelity, many more)
Foris is, if I have my facts correct, currently the parent company in the Monaco-Foris relationship, with the idea that Monaco would become standalone in the future.
Toby Hoenisch - TenX
Thrill-seeker and passionate learner of everything learn-able, who believes in turning ideas into reality.LinkedIn is one channel I can't keep on top off. Please contact me via email: [email protected]
- Software Development & Research @ Know-Center | Jun 2008 - Aug 2009
- R&D Engineer @ Silver Egg Technology | May 2011 - Dec 2012
- Co-Founder @ Schooldio | Oct 2013 - Dec 2013
- CEO & Developer @ One One Agency | Feb 2015 - May 2015
- CEO & Founder @ StudyPact | May 2013 - Present?
- CEO & Co-founder @ TenX Pte. Ltd. | Mar 2015 - Present
Know Center:
This was right after he finished his BSc and he didn't stay long so I'm not sure what work to credit him on there but it was likely an entry level coding position, but the description for Know Center (still operating) is as follows:
Know-Center is an established international research center that is currently expanding into the areas of data-driven business and big data analytics.
Silver Egg Technology:
He then joined Silver Egg 2 years later as an R&D Engineer, I'm not sure what work to credit him specifically on because of the broad scope of his job title.
Silver Egg Technology's "Aigent Recommender" powers the item recommendations on many of Japan's leading web sites.
If you're wondering why ask what he did there when I only looked into the companies Kris previously worked at, it's because in the case of Monaco's CEO, most of the work experience he has on linkedin is high level management and so the entire weight of the companies successes and failures is on him. In the case of TenX's CEO, software development is an extremely broad field and he has his time at Know Center and Silver Egg listed on linkedin but didn't provide any details on his work at either place there, making it difficult to attribute the proper credit he deserves for any accomplishments or etc.
Schooldio:
Schooldio only existed for a 3 month period in late 2013, I was able to find their twitter but nothing else. The description on linkedin simply says "Tokyo".
One One Agency:
I wasn't able to find anything else (the name is generic enough that thousands of results come up, but none specifically about a "One One Agency".
One One Agency is a design agency - specialized in mobile & web development.
StudyPact:
StudyPact is still listed as active as far as operating status goes, but their last tweet was in April of 2015 stating "StudyPact server outage"
TenX:
Nothing to add
Robert Farkas - COO - Centra
Centra currently has no CEO. They do have one remaining Co-founder so I'll cover him instead.
- ATS Corp. @ Director of Sales Marketing | Feb 2012 - Mar 2016
- CMO @ Centra Tech | Oct 2016 - Nov 2017
- COO @ Centra Tech | Nov 2017 - Present
Robert put what he did/does at ATS and Centra, I'll quote him.
ATS Corp.:
Operating Manager for Strategic Planning & Market Research
Started at the company in 2012 managing a team of 2 with a very minimal marketing budget Conceptualizing the companies web-strategy, each year increasing revenue by 12-18% on average eventually expanding the marketing team to 10 professionals & managing a near $2M marketing budget
Centra Tech:
A pair of quotes: one from his time as CMO and the other for his current work as COO.
Designing and promoting Centra Techs newest products and innovations from our company to the world. Responsible for keeping the public informed about each and every move involved with the Centra Card, Centra Wallet, cBay.io and the Currency Conversion Engine (CCE) Module. Developing new B2B partnerships resulting in expansion and growth of the products and technology.
As Chief Operating Officer my responsibilities on a day to day basis include overseeing all daily operations here at Centra Tech. Working closely with our development team, legal team and fellow executives to implement business strategies, plans and procedures to ensure that we deliver the best possible product available. Constantly setting comprehensive goals for expansion and performance. Leading each and every one of my employees with encouragement to secure maximum performance in the workplace ultimately resulting in better products and happier users. The Centra Tech team prides itself in having hard working employees who posses profound work ethic and passion.
Robert also worked as a senior executive at Miami Exotics. More on that later. Nothing about this on his linkedin page however, so you'd never know unless you read this article where it is mentioned once as an afterthought.
I'll go through the Co-founders of Monaco, TenX and Centra next.
Monaco has 3 other Co-founders:
- Gary Or (also a Co-founder of Foris) | CTO
- Bobby Bao | Managing Director
- Rafael Melo | CFO
TenX also has 3 other Co-founders:
- Julian Hosp | President
- Michael Sperk | CTO
- Paul Kitti | CPO
Centra as far as I know had 3-4 founders, 2 who left:
- Sam (Sohrab) Sharma | - no current position
- Raymond Trapani | Advisor at Centra
- Robert Farkas | Currently COO & Covered under the CEO section
- William Hagner? | Owned Miami Exotics, a luxury car rental company | Not officially listed as a founder | No additional information found
Before going into the co-founders of Monaco and TenX, I'll shift focus to Centra.
Sam Sharma and Raymond Trapani were indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on perjury charges related to a DUI case in March 2016 -the indictment came soon after Centra's ICO and the companies official statement on the matter was that the two would "step aside to support the continued growth of the company." Sam Sharma's position was then filled by Raymond Trapani's grandfather, William Hagner (not listed on linkedin) who is also the president of Miami Exotics - the company Sam, Raymond, Robert, and other people involved in Centra worked at prior to the formation of Centra.
Sam, Raymond, Robert and William are now facing another lawsuit, quotes from a coindesk article on the lawsuit follow:
In the complaint, lawyers for the plaintiff alleged that the Centra sale constituted an unregistered offering and sale of securities. They wrote: "...in connection with Centra Initial Coin Offering (the "Centra ICO"), Defendants raised over $30 million in digital cryptocurrencies by offering and selling unregistered securities in direct violation of the Securities Act."
The complaint also accused the defendants of misleading investors about the nature of its relationship with card networks Visa and Mastercard, as well as listing fake team members on its website.
To which Centra responded:
Centra Tech disputes the allegations in the complaint. This lawsuit, which for the most part, appears to repeat unfounded claims regarding Centra Tech, alleges that Centra Tech’s initial coin offering of Centra Tokens was an unregistered sale of securities. The plaintiff’s complaint attempts to mimic claims and allegations the Securities and Exchange Commission has lodged against other cryptocurrency offerors
For now this is all I'm going to say on Centra - I'm currently working on the full writeup, originally wanted to post it at the same time as this post but I'm going to have to post that later in the day. Regardless, I'm seeing a lot of red flags and would express caution if you're considering investing in Centra despite the lawsuit.
Moving on, I'll go through the Monaco co-founders followed by the TenX co-founders.
Gary Or - Monaco
7-years experience of Ruby on Rails development, ranging from Rails 2.3.8 to Rails 5.0.0. Enjoy hacking and learning edge technology. Recently in love with Docker, Golang and Elasticsearch. Enjoy designing user flow of product as well. Time-to-market is always my primary concern.
- Web Developer @ Inspire Synergy Ltd. | Oct 2009 - May 2011
- Web & Mobile Dev @ Stepcase | Jun 2011 - Feb 2012
- App Developer @ BEECRAZY | Feb 2012 - Nov 2012
- CTO @ EventXtra | Nov 2012 - Oct 2014
- Platform Architect @ BEECRAZY | Oct 2014 - Jun 2016
- Co-founder & CTO @ Foris Ltd. | Jun 2016 - Present
- Co-founder CTO @ Monaco | Jun 2016 - Present
Gary has descriptions for the work he did at each position so I'll post those:
Inspire Energy Ltd.:
Handle Client Projects and Company Products
Stepcase:
LabelBox for Android, Steply for Android, Chaopin, Mobile Feedback
Beecrazy | as an App Developer:
Web Development, Mobile API, Mobile Site, BCMarket
EventXtra:
Design and Develop Product everyday
BEECRAZY | as Platform Architect:
Developed/Hacked a few products to improve company and product performance:
Falcon: Platform which streamlines the workflow of China product sourcing, from product suggestion/approval, to production, to orders fulfillment and merchant payment.
Jabba: Dashboards which aggregates data from all countries Ensogo has business in and presents important metrics for day to day decision.
Phoenix: Self-serve marketplace which opens up Ensogo to SMEs in all countries.
Greedo Image Worker: Golang worker which makes use of VIPS (a fast image processing library) for processing hundred thousands of images per hour.
Vader: API server which leverages on Elasticsearch and makes the BEECRAZY site much faster, in orders of magnitude.
Hacked a Taiwan Barcode Scanner: - Reverse engineered a micro-USB base portable barcode scanner (Marson) and made it work on all versions of Android by using native USB Signal API. Feel free to ask me more about this fun project
Foris & Monaco:
nothing to add
Bobby Bao - Monaco
Specialties:
TMT, Fintech, Robo-Advisor, Blockchain, eCommerce, Marketplace, B2C, C2C, Cross-border, Mergers & Acquisitions, Fundraising, Corporate Development, Investor Relations
- Analyst Intern @ Bank Of America Merrill Lynch | 2012 - 2012 (less than a year)
- Investment Banking, Financial Analyst @ Allegiance Capital | 2012 - 2013
- Investment Banking, Crossborder M&A @ Deloitte Corporate Finance | 2013 - 2014
- Investment Banking, M&A Group @ China Renaissance | 2014 - 2015
- MD of Corporate Dev./Investor Relations and Co-founder - Crossborder @ Ensogo | 2015 - 2016
- Co-founder & Managing Director at Monaco | Jun 2016 - Present
BoA:
It's Bank of America, don't really need to say more
Allegiance Capital:
A premier middle-market investment bank built with the same entrepreneurial tenacity as its clients unleashed to create their own successful businesses. Entrepreneurs are the backbone of the Allegiance Capital team enabling the firm to closely relate to its clients.
Deloitte Corporate Finance:
Cross-border M&A / Corporate Finance Advisory (CFA)
China Renaissance:
The No.1 Technology Investment Bank in China.
TMT sector.
Mergers and Acquisitions, Privatization, PIPE Investment, and Strategic Investment.
Ensogo:
I already covered Ensogo, but here is what he has down for his work there:
I drove fundraising process leading to an AUD 55m+ financing (Vipshop's strategic investment) and built cross-border Mobile marketplace from scratch in January 2016, integrated its mobile app with China ERP systems, 3rd party shipping and payment companies.
Monaco:
nothing to add
Rafael Melo - Monaco
CFO with a broad finance, marketing and operational experience in Latin America, Asia and the US. Specialist in high-tech organizations and entrepreneurial and start-up enterprises providing financial leadership both as financial controller and valued business partner, with a particular emphasis on data-driven commercial decision making and operational process improvement.
- FP&A Specialist, SAP Implementation Team Leader, Graduate Trainee @ Embraer (in Brazil) | Mar 1999 - Jun 2002
- Division Controller @ Embraer (North America) | Jul 2002 - Jun 2004
- Finance Manager @ Embraer (North America) | Jul 2006 - Dec 2006
- Regional Finance Director @ Embraer (Asia Pacific) | Jan 2007 - Dec 2010
- Business Finance officer (CFO-equivalent) @ Mobile Payment Solutions | Jan 2011 - Jun 2014
- CFO @ Ensogo | Jul 2014 - Jun 2016
- Co-founder & CFO @ Monaco | Jul 2016 - Present
Embraer:
Rafael worked at Embraer from Mar 1999 to Dec 2010, starting in Brazil and moving to Florida in Jul 2002 to take up the position of Division Controller in the North American region for 2 years. After finishing his MBA he returned to Embraer in Jul 2006 as Finance Manager for the North American region. His final position there was Regional Finance Director of the Asia Pacific region.
Mobile Payments Solutions (MasterCard-incubated Technology Company:
MasterCard is building the Operating System of digital commerce, transforming the way people securely shop, sell and send and receive money. Initially founded as a joint-venture start-up in 2011 and now a wholly-owned subsidiary of MasterCard, Mobile Payment Solutions is a key element to the strategy and is charged with building a new and independent business around a disruptive technology.
Ensogo:
nothing new to add
Monaco:
nothing new to add
Julian Hosp - TenX
Co-Founder TenX, Blockchain Expert, Medical Doctor, Professional Athlete, Bestselling Author and Keynote-Speaker
- Professional Kitesurfer @ Kiteboarding Worldwide | 2002-2012
- Book Author [Kite Tricktionary] | 2010 - 2012
- Medical Doctor/Surgeon @ "Hospital" | 2010 - 2012
- Personal Development & #1 Best Selling Author [I-Unlimited] | May 2012 - Present
- Co-founder & president @ TenX | Jun 2015 - Present
Kiteboarding Worldwide:
Couldn’t find any company information
"Hospital"
This isn't a joke, all he has listed is Medical Doctor for his title, Innsbruck & Munich for the location, and "surgeon" as the description. Haven't been able to find out where he actually worked as a trauma surgeon as claimed - not doubting just telling you that I haven't found anything to back his claim up. (Bonus points: his medical education description is "Studay Medicine")
TenX:
nothing to add
Paul Kitti - TenX
Entrepreneur by design.
- Teaching Team @ Kyoto Institute of Technology / Stanford University | Jul 2011 - Apr 2013
- Innovation Coach @ Kyoto Design Lab | Oct 2013 - Dec 2014
- Co-founder & CPO @ TenX | Jun 2015 - Present
KIT/Stanford:
Teaching team member at the ME310 - Design Innovation; the course that gave birth to e.g. IDEO and numerous startups. http://me310.stanford.edu
Kyoto Design Lab:
Kyoto Design Lab is a part of KIT, there's no description for his time there so I'll leave a link to the website. http://www.d-lab.kit.ac.jp
TenX:
nothing to add
Michael Sperk - TenX
- PhD student @ Medical University Innsbruck | Feb 2012 - Jul 2013
- Lead Frontend Engineer/Technical Lead @ visalyze | Sep 2013 - Feb 2016
- Co-founder? & CTO @ TenX | Feb 2016 - Present
Innsbruck - Section of Bioinformatics:
Database Requirements Analysis and Design. J2EE Web Development. Data Management and Analysis. Planning and Administration of IT Infrastructure.
visalyze:
Developing a scalable browser based Visual Analysis Tool, capable of processing and visualizing hundreds of thousands of social media messages in real time.
TenX:
He has a bit posted,
Designing and implementing the core payment systems. Designing the scalable IT infrastructure required for handling transactions.
I put the ? Behind co-founder because the TenX website has him listed as a Co-founder but his linked in profile does not mention that - he also joined about a year after TenX was created - not sure where the error is but either his linkedin or the TenX website could use a small update to clarify.
closing
Took me a bit to compile data, I'll be posting round 3 (the rest of the key staff members) and the followup for Centra ASAP. All of the information I've posted can be found via simple google searches, unfortunately I couldn't find any further details for certain things, I'll post an update if I do find any new information. Please let me know in the comments if I've missed anything or stated anything incorrectly.
Nice work. I am pretty bullish on Monaco Card, it is flying under the radar right now and when they finally start sending out cards and get their other planned features out the door, it is going to skyrocket. People will be surprised, because Monaco has been flying under the radar for too long.
When it comes to a cryptocurrency project I am willing to go long on that isn't Bitcoin, Litecoin or Ethereum - the team behind the project is my number one criteria. If the team is inexperienced, lacks the passion and drive to build a real company (instead of a pump and dump coin), then I will avoid it.
The team behind Monaco Card is the reason I invested into this cryptocurrency, because I am a huge believer in its future potential as a top #10 cryptocurrency project. It is clear the way that Kris runs the company is very different to how other projects are run. Kris seems to prefer slow and steady growth, not rushing into things and meticulously building and planning for the long-term. This in comparison to other projects that merely rebrand themselves and they go up in value.
While Monaco Card still doesn't have cards in the wild yet or working application, when they do release something you will know that not only has it been well-planned prior to release, but well-established and secure because Kris believes in compliance (a trait ingrained in him no doubt from running successful companies).
This is why I am perplexed when people call Monaco Card a scam. Look at the team behind it, they just hired someone with a PhD in Computational Physics, they have Brent Diehl who worked as head of Visa’s AP-CEMEA prepaid consultancy division and Western Union. The team behind Monaco Card know fintech and they know debit cards, money transferring, how to be compliant and everything else in between.
Look at the team behind TenX Pay and I am honestly surprised that anyone trust's TenX Pay as a legitimate or long-term company at all. Their cards are plastic, they make you pay for the card (MCO's cards are free, plastic one requires no lockup and the metal ones require a six month lockup of tokens you get back).
The CEO of TenX Pay seems more of an entrepreneur with no actual CEO experience and you never hear him talk or see him publicly. Then you have Julian Hosp who is pretty suspicious, he has no finance experience either and was a doctor, yet refers to himself as a blockchain expert. When you look at TenX's team, red flags are triggered everywhere, they literally have no one on their team with any experience in fintech or debit cards.
Yes, TenX did beat MCO to market by releasing cards, but they took shortcuts using WaveCrest and it came back to bite them in a huge way. At present, cards are only available in Europe and the fees are terrible, their app is buggy and they keep making promises of new large exchanges, global rollout, a rewards scheme supposedly that has been verbally approved by lawyers (but not yet publicly approved) and most laughable of all: COMIT which is an overhyped layer they are promising for the transactional aspect of their token (which has been repeatedly delayed).
When Kris and the Monaco team start releasing features, they're going to hit the ground running and everyone who slept on this project is going to be FOMO'ing the hardest they've ever FOMO'd.
Fantastic post and covers very well why I am all in on Monaco. They have a fantastic team and are taking the time to build a game changing product in crypto. They don't compare themselves at all to TenX or Centra, rather the banks of today. That is who they consider their competition.
They aim to put cryptocurrency in every wallet and bridge the current technology gap that currently exists in crypto for the mass market. They will make it easy to buy/sell and spend crypto on a great looking card with fantastic benefits.
I can't wait for this revolution and Monaco have been under the radar far too long.
Great write up :) Definitely shows Monaco has the industry expertise compared to Centra and Tenx.
I did a post about Monaco at the end of last year, and am really happy to see their progress.
https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@hassy/monaco-card-should-you-buy-more-tokens-the-real-value-of-mco
Superb overview. Any chances of saying how these teams stack up against each other?
If you could elaborate a bit on what you mean by that I can definitely try to! I'm working on the other 2 parts of this showdown with updates on Centras new CEO and the appearance Monacos CEO made on CNBC a short while ago, I'll have it done (soon)