by 
SolidBlock is excited to announce the onboarding of several new hires, and most importantly, our new president!
Joining SolidBlock as President is Laura Brightsen, who will drive SolidBlock’s mission, vision, and overall direction.
Laura has a keen ability to identify value creation opportunities for investing in both the strategic marketing and finance spaces. She has held several senior leadership roles in public and private companies and multiple board seats for private for-profit companies. Her extensive private equity and venture capital experience combined with many years in the tech/telecom industry, make Laura infinitely appropriate for her presidential role with SolidBlock.
Located in Miami, FL, Laura will work with global contacts to drive SolidBlock’s agenda.
“Through its extensive partnership network, SolidBlock is working to further interoperability and regulatory standardization and eliminate roadblocks to digital markets and investing,” explained Laura. “We’re now looking to expand our network with real estate companies, municipal projects, and investors on a global scale.”
Though she started in December as an intern, Lydia Scherr’s superpowers were evident from day one, and she became a full-time employee in February, filling the role of Web3 Research Lead. Among her responsibilities are data oversight and monitoring company performance and guiding data-driven decision-making for the company. Lydia will work closely with multiple teams to produce regular reports reviewing technical performance indicators as well as providing quantitative and qualitative project presentations, and assisting in the technical development of new projects.
Lydia is an award-winning speaker and business leader with an MA from Columbia University and 10 years of experience in finance, research, and business development. Lydia is passionate about using her experience to enhance the mass adoption of blockchain technology.
Another new hire is Gavi Zeitlin, SolidBlock’s Head of Marketing. A product and marketing enthusiast with a penchant for history, Gavi is working to define SolidBlock’s marketing needs and direct his staff in the writing and creation of several campaigns to grow SolidBlock’s marketing platform and bring in new investors.
With more than 10 years of working with startups, agencies, and Fortune 200 companies on marketing, product, and business development, Gavi has worked in a variety of industries including electronic cigarettes, nutritional supplements, e-commerce, non-profits, and agencies. He has personally managed $1 million+ in profitable FB Ad spends and has a deep passion for crypto and blockchain and how they are changing the world.
He also gives insightful on-the-spot analyses of current events for the weekly Tuesday SolidBlock Live Streaming on social media. What’s the conflict between Russia and Ukraine really about? “Wars are fought over resources,” says Gavi. And Bitcoin, with its finite supply, is one of them. Listen to Gavi’s fascinating explanation of what may be going on behind the scenes.
The Legal department recently signed on Oksana Vasylenko as a legal assistant. Before joining SolidBlock, Oksana worked for more than four years as a legal advisor in a consulting company. With experience in company law, corporate, contract and financial law, real estate, dispute resolution, and compliance, Oksana is perfectly positioned to prepare legal correspondence, affidavits, and other legal documents for SolidBlock while working closely with Sivan Ivgi, Head of Legal.
We note that Oksana lives with her husband and young family in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, and while we are physically distant, her plight and the plight of Ukraine are uppermost in our minds.
We also welcome Stas Solomon Shamis, our new compliance officer. A compliance officer is an individual who ensures that a company complies with its outside regulatory and legal requirements as well as internal policies and bylaws.
Stas has two law degrees from Tel Aviv University in collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley, and worked for Shibolet Law, one of the leading law firms in Israel. A lecturer in corporate and securities law, Stas also headed legal management and business development for an international group of companies, where he dealt with cryptocurrency platforms and compliance, AML, payment systems, licensing, banking and cross-border litigation.
Though originally from Russia, Stas has been living for the past four years in Kyiv. He and his wife, who is now in Israel, run a charity organization that provides hot meals and groceries to holocausts survivors. Due to the situation, it’s been hard to raise money in Kyiv and to cook so they’ll be sending each survivor a little bit of money to buy food and groceries. Stas is in constant touch with his community in Kyiv.
Tasha Reshetnikova joins the marketing team as Social Media Strategist. With her positive energy and jump-right-in attitude, Tasha managed to pivot into her task within her first week. A brand narrative and marketing professional with a focus on storytelling, Tasha’s major fields of interest are technology, sustainability, education, and sports. Her educational background is in linguistics and filmmaking. She has 10+ years of experience in full-cycle visual content production and digital marketing. Though she was born in Russia, Tasha lived and studied in New York for three years. Her languages: Russian, English, and a smattering of French and Hebrew. Look for her mark on our social media platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
The most recent of our new hires is Yotam Yinhal, SolidBlock’s new Chief Financial Officer. With a degree in business management and accountancy, Yotam previously owned and managed several businesses in the London property market and guided an IPO for a financial firm on the Israeli bursa. Yotam is particularly attracted to SolidBlock due to his background in property and construction, and his interest and investment in crypto. A father of four, Yotam divides his time between London and Israel and is part owner of a chain of street food operations in London.
“London is brilliant,” Yotam enthuses. “I love football (soccer) so London is the perfect place to be.”
If you’ve been to London recently, you’ll know how vibrant a city it is. SolidBlock is working with our partners London Chelsea Real Estate to offer London Digital Bonds, the tokenization of prime discounted London residential properties that are bought and sold in a fix and flip model with income distributed as an interest to investors.
Kudos to our awesome intern Dante Reminick who is set to graduate from the University of Minnesota in six weeks with a degree in Management of Information Systems and a minor in Business law. Dante has focused on gaining experience in working with startups and venture capital with a focus on consumer tech, b2b SaaS, and web3/blockchain solutions, and we hope he’s going to stick around even after his graduation.
“I met [SolidBlock CIO] Yuval Wirzberger at a DeFi conference in Jerusalem and instantly fell in love with SolidBlock and their mission,” recalls Dante.
Lastly, SolidBlock has switched accountancy firms and is now working with Irena Glazkov and her firm Effective Stream, part of Glazkov Accountants. We’re enjoying the partnership.
SolidBlock is growing and expanding our reach, and with our new hires, we’re getting closer to the design and launch of our SolidBlock Ecosystem. Stay tuned!
Download The Digital Asset Handbook to learn more about tokenization.
Visit the SolidBlock digital marketplace.
