Brex’s chief compliance officer has left the fintech startup and joined Andreessen Horowitz as a partner

Ali Rathod-Papier TechCrunch has exclusively learned that she left her role as global chief compliance officer at corporate card spend management startup Brex and joined enterprise firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) as a partner and compliance officer.

Rathod-Papier and a16z declined to comment on this matter.

According to her LinkedIn profileRathod-Papier currently “oversees a16z’s overseas expansion and political efforts, supporting the government affairs team, managing financial crime and national security risks, and foreign operations.” In total, she worked at Brex for two.5 years in various roles, including director of monetary crime compliance, before joining a16z in May.

Brex CFO Ben Gammell told TechCrunch that her departure was “amicable,” adding that Rathod-Papier “made invaluable contributions to financial management and compliance during her time at Brex” and that she helped position the startup “well for growth.” in the next chapter.

Rathod-Papier shared its decision with colleagues in April, in response to a Slack message reviewed by TechCrunch. A Brex spokesperson told TechCrunch this week that the startup is currently seeking to fill her role. Meanwhile, Bruce Wallace, a longtime Brex advisor who previously served as Silicon Valley Bank’s chief operating officer and Wells Fargo’s chief risk and fraud officer, has taken over as interim chief compliance officer.

The hire comes at an interesting time for a16z, which invested in Synapse, a banking services startup that filed for bankruptcy in April and has since been under fire for missing an estimated $85 million in customer funds. The company has remained silent on the Synapse controversy. TechCrunch spoke with leaders and general partners from fintech company a16z Angela Strange AND Anish Acharya in 2022 about the company’s strategy in space. A non-cryptocurrency company is noisy fintech investments include Wise, Affirm, Deel, and Greenlight, amongst others.

Meanwhile, TechCrunch learned this week that Doug Adamic isn’t any longer Brex’s chief revenue officer. The startup told us so Garrett Marker recently took his place as Brex’s latest CRO. Marker most recently served as vp of world sales at Braze, a cloud-based customer engagement platform for omnichannel marketing.

Adamic took over as Brex’s CRO in May 2022 following the departure of Sam Blond, and later joined Founders Fund as a partner, a role he stepped down from earlier this 12 months. Previously, Adamic was related to SAP Concur (Brex’s competitor) for over 16 years.

The moves follow Brex’s announcement that it was abandoning its co-management model, with co-founder Pedro Franchesci becoming sole CEO and co-founder Henrique Dubugras taking up as chairman of the board.

The two told TechCrunch earlier this month that they imagine having two CEOs may very well be a bottleneck in the company’s growth, stopping its leadership from making faster decisions. They also imagine that when Brex does eventually go public – which they do not expect until 2025 or later – investors shall be more all for the traditional model by which only one CEO runs the company.

Interestingly, in June 2023, Jason Mok, former operating partner of 16z, joined Brex as head of startups.