Yi He, the businesswoman who co-founded the digital asset trade behemoth Binance with its former chief Changpeng Zhao, has been appointed as the corporate’s new co-CEO.
He, who beforehand served as Binance’s Chief Buyer Service Officer, has largely stayed out of the general public eye till now. In contrast to Zhou (fondly often called “CZ”), who regularly makes public appearances, He prefers to function behind the scenes, specializing in strategic planning, branding, and enterprise growth.
Richard Teng, who will proceed to serve alongside Yi He as co-chief government of Binance, introduced the information of the management change at Binance Blockchain Week in Dubai on Wednesday.
“Yi has been an integral a part of the manager management crew because the launch of Binance. Her progressive and user-focused strategy has been instrumental in shaping the corporate’s imaginative and prescient, tradition, and bottom-up enterprise technique,” Teng postulated in a press release. “This appointment is a pure development, and she’s going to proceed to information the group from power to power.”
Yi, born in 1988 in China, joined Binance simply earlier than its launch in 2017. She has been broadly deemed because the strategizing and innovation stalwart, complementing CZ’s management, as Binance advanced to grow to be the world’s largest crypto trade.
“I’m honored to construct alongside Richard, who brings many years of expertise in regulated monetary markets and was among the many first to manage crypto in its early days,” Yi He acknowledged. “Collectively, we convey numerous views and are assured in main the way forward for the business throughout this pivotal time, as we responsibly develop our international presence and drive sustainable innovation with our customers all the time on the middle.”
Binance’s CZ took to X to congratulate the brand new co-CEO. “[Yi He] ought to have been the Binance CEO from day 1,” he opined. “Nice journey forward with two sturdy leaders (with complementary expertise) main Binance.”
Hypothesis about CZ’s return to a management function at Binance reached fever peak in October after U.S. President Donald Trump pardoned the crypto billionaire. Zhao pleaded responsible to violating US cash laundering legal guidelines in 2023 and accomplished his four-month jail sentence in September 2024. Nonetheless, no announcement has been made but concerning Zhao’s potential return.

