2 Executives Are Leaving Blockchain Startup R3 in Management Shake-Up

Distributed ledger technology provider R3 has carried out an extensive internal reorganization, resulting in the departure of two members of its management committee, CoinDesk has learned.

Brian McNulty, a managing director and head of global services, and Lauren Carroll, chief administrative officer, are leaving the company, R3 told employees at town hall meetings Friday, according to people familiar with the situation.

An R3 spokesperson confirmed the internal reorganization, which he said will include an expansive hiring program for 2019, but declined to comment on individual staff departures. Neither McNulty nor Carroll answered requests for comment by press time.

McNulty joined R3 in March 2016 when the start-up was busy onboarding consortium member banks. He had previously founded the PTDL (Post Trade Distributed Ledger) Group, a rival blockchain group which numbered around 40 members including CME Group, State Street Bank and the London Stock Exchange.

Carroll was formerly in-house counsel at ICAP before transitioning into business management roles at the electronic trading firm.

New team structure

As part of the reorganization, co-founder Todd McDonald will run a new “design” team that combines all of R3’s product and marketing efforts, according to a memo CEO David Rutter sent the company’s roughly 200 employees after Friday’s town hall meetings.

Product management was previously in the same division as engineering, which Richard Gendal Brown will continue to lead.

The memo also outlined several other changes:

• Chief engineer James Carlyle will run a new “production” team dedicated to supporting the deployment of R3’s technology at client companies.
• The general counsel’s office has been merged with external affairs and placed under Charley Cooper, who has long overseen regulatory affairs and public relations for R3.
• Chief of staff Zack Kavanaugh assumed added responsibilities for recruiting, HR and business resources.
• Chief financial officer (CFO) Paul Harris will oversee a combined finance and corporate development (M&A team.
• A search is underway for a chief revenue officer (CRO) to lead the sales team. As CoinDesk reported earlier this month, Scott Grayson, R3’s former chief sales officer, left in September and recently joined the blockchain services firm AlphaPoint.

In June 2018 R3 had to field media speculation that the company was running short of funds. More recently, a legal dispute with Ripple concerning a contract to purchase five billion XRP tokens was resolved.

Image: R3 founder David Rutter at Consensus, from CoinDesk archives