From the Back Cover
"As Executive-in-Residence, 2018 at Cornell Tech, cryptocurrency is an area in which I've had minimal exposure, and needed to become more fluent with a baseline understanding of its technologies and ideology. As a representative of industry professionals with deep expertise in talent strategy inclusion, diversity, and equality practices, we have a vested interest in the future, assuring we are doing our best to encourage the next generation of technology leaders and thought leaders to leave no individuals, no groups, and no communities behind in new opportunities for wealth creation, access, and economic independence. The authors, Sarah Swammy, Richard Thompson, and Marvin Loh, adeptly demonstrate their experiential subject matter expertise as well as offer a clear picture of interdependency with our existing monetary infrastructure. This book will greatly benefit readers who desire neutral and objective insight into this new era, and who share the desire to extend all roads leading to economic equality."
--Denise Young Smith, Executive-in-Residence, 2018, Cornell Tech
"Cryptocurrency and blockchain enterprise platforms have the potential to transform commerce and the value chain in both for-profit and non-profit sectors. However, not all communities are aware of this potential and how they can benefit from this transformation. At the UNCF, we are deeply concerned about and committed to increasing the value proposition for historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the new economy, and how our faculty and students cannot just be passengers but drive the development of next-generation technologies including blockchain platforms. We applaud the authors Richard Thompson, Sarah Swammy, and Marvin Loh in their attempts to illuminate how cryptocurrency and blockchain platforms actually work and their implications for the future economy. This is important work that will help diverse communities such as HBCUs lead in the development of these technologies to build wealth."
--Chad Womack, Senior Director, STEM Initiatives and Special Projects, UNCF
Sarah Swammy is a Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for the Portfolio Solutions businesses in both State Street Global Markets, LLC, a registered broker dealer subsidiary of State Street Bank and Trust and in State Street Bank and Trust. Sarah joined State Street from BNY Mellon where she held several leadership positions. She has held compliance positions at Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc., CSFB, and Barclays Capital, Inc.
Richard Thompson has more than 25 years of experience directing the development of world-class institutional financial systems and pioneering the next generation of "cloud" technology. The integration of blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation workflows into a single delivery fabric is the primary focus of his efforts in Digital Air. Helping to launch two ICO's, fx, fxoptions, multiple fixed income, and a number of derivatives platforms, Richard is widely acknowledged as one of the foremost quantitative IT architects in the financial industry.
Marvin Loh has 30 years of experience in the financial service industry where he has been an analyst at various firms covering a multitude of asset classes. At present, he follows global macro themes for BNY Mellon, where he evaluates asset valuations by looking for intersections within the FX, fixed income and equity markets. Marvin has also been active in identifying disruptive technologies and business models.
