Rubix Unlocked

Sachin Doshi
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Entrepreneurship

Rubix Unlocked is a conversation series with the people building financial infrastructure and the businesses running on top of it. Host Sachin Doshi is Founder and CEO of Rubix Partners, a retained executive search firm working at leadership level across fintech, digital assets and high-growth B2B technology. The guests are people he'd be speaking to anyway through the search desk: founders at an inflection point, operators partway through a transformation they haven't finished yet, and the investors funding both. Guests have included JB Graftieaux (CEO EMEA, Coinbase), Renée Berman (Partner, Motive Partners), Jürgen Blumberg (Centrifuge), Robin Gilthorpe (CEO, Earnix) and Steffen Vollert (CEO, Volt). The show weights towards fintech and digital assets because that's where Rubix works most deeply. The questions run wider. How do you hire for a function that didn't exist three years ago? What actually changes inside an institution when its core moves on-chain? Most of what gets said publicly about this market is positioning. These conversations go after the operating detail underneath it - what the decision looked like at the time, what it cost, what the person would do differently now. Useful if you're running a business in this space, backing one, or working out where your own career sits inside it. Episodes run 25-35 minutes. New episodes monthly. Rubix Unlocked. Conversations from the search desk.

Episodes

  1. Oct 19

    Where There’s Mystery, There’s Margin - Eric Queathem on stablecoins and scaling Velocity

    Even a mid-sized payments company can tie up a billion dollars a year in a single market, just so it can pay merchants on time. Eric Queathem thinks stablecoins are about to change that. Eric spent nearly a decade on the Worldpay executive team, running strategy, partnerships and emerging businesses, after five years at McKinsey. He left to build Velocity, which gives multinational businesses access to stablecoin payments and treasury through a single API. This year Velocity raised a $48m Series A led by Dragonfly and FirstMark, with Visa, Circle, Ripple, Coinbase Ventures and QED among the backers. Eric explains why the next big shift in payments is happening on the back end, in settlement systems that haven’t changed in 25 to 30 years. He breaks down why payments companies pre-position cash days in advance, what that does to growth, and why his team says “where there’s mystery, there’s margin” when they benchmark a CFO’s FX rates. The second half is about building the team. Eric talks through the move from founder-led sales to a commercial team that is now scaling fast, how he hands over accounts he won personally, and why Velocity pays more for senior operators who have done it before. He also shares the question he asks every senior candidate, and why he has told several large strategics “you will break us”. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 00:45 Velocity explained for a CFO 02:02 Pre-positioned cash and what changes for a PSP’s treasury team 04:06 FX pricing: “Where there’s mystery, there’s margin” 05:11 A customer’s day, before and after 06:42 API or no-code: how customers go live 08:08 Why Eric left the Worldpay exec team 12:13 Staying neutral with Visa, Circle and Ripple on the cap table 14:32 Saying no to strategics: “You will break us” 16:14 Who controls the settlement layer in five years 18:34 From founder-led sales to a commercial team 21:00 Handing over founder-won accounts 22:49 What Velocity wants to be known for as a place to work 24:45 Doing with 25 people what used to take 75 27:10 The best hire he’s ever made 28:07 The one question he asks senior candidates 30:07 What he’s changed his mind on: the US Follow Eric on X: @queathem Velocity: velocity.xyz Rubix Unlocked is hosted by Sachin Doshi, founder of Rubix Partners, executive search for FinTech and digital assets leadership.

    Where There’s Mystery, There’s Margin - Eric Queathem on stablecoins and scaling Velocity

  2. Oct 8

    "Build Once, Use Many" - the infrastructure bet behind Broadridge's move into tokenised assets

    Germán Soto Sanchez is Chief Product Officer and Co-President of Digital Assets at Broadridge, which sits underneath a large share of the market's post-trade infrastructure. Tokenisation there is something that has to be built while clients keep functioning. He joins Sachin Doshi after a busy few months: governance for Ondo's tokenised equities in July 2026, Kraken's xStocks in August, then the DLX tokenisation platform and a move into US wealth in September. Much of the episode sits on what a tokenised share actually gives you. Ondo's holders received full voting rights. xStocks holders submit a preference that the shareholder of record can choose to ignore. Germán explains why the two differ, and what an investor has to do to establish which one they are holding. On what has paid for itself, he puts a number on it. Around $380bn a day runs through Broadridge's distributed ledger repo solution, against a target approaching a trillion inside twelve months. Collateral is the thesis underneath, where roughly $150trn of assets are eligible globally and only about $30trn is working. The last stretch is about people. What goes into the spec for someone sitting between settlement mechanics and blockchain architecture, whether that leader can be grown inside a firm, and why Germán hires the best athlete in the room. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 00:46 Two full-time jobs, and how product ended up owning digital assets 02:42 Build once, use many 03:39 Why the FCA and Bank of England expect a long coexistence 05:24 Dedicated teams, embedded infrastructure 06:55 Extending the wealth platform into the US 09:09 Ondo, xStocks, and who holds the vote 12:46 Does a buyer know which one they bought? 14:19 Accountability for on-chain governance 15:36 Show me the money, applied to tokenisation 19:17 DLR at $380bn a day, and the collateral thesis 22:48 Which asset class moves slowest 26:24 Does that change who you need running it? 28:38 The spec: translating in both directions 30:11 Capital markets or shipped product 31:42 Grow the leader internally, or hire in 33:21 Best hire, best question, changed mind 37:36 Where to find Germán

    "Build Once, Use Many" - the infrastructure bet behind Broadridge's move into tokenised assets

  3. Sep 23

    "A Convenient Illusion" - What Has To Be True Before You Hire a CRO | James Barker, GTM Hive

    A Convenient Illusion - James Barker, Founder, GTM Hive James Barker has spent his career selling technology into banks and then running the teams that do it. He built and led commercial functions at Backbase and at Mambu, where he was instrumental in taking the European revenue line from 7 to 43 million in about two and a half years. He was Chief Commercial Officer at Bud and has held fractional and non-executive seats since. He now runs GTM Hive, advising and training the commercial teams at growth-stage FS-tech businesses selling six and seven figure deals into financial institutions. James opens on the mistake he sees most often in hiring: companies hire for the persona they want to achieve rather than the one that can get them there. A Salesforce or an Oracle name on a CV means someone who ran part of a machine that was already built, and a ten-person vendor needs the person who built one. He sets out what a CRO's job actually is at ten people, at fifty, and beyond, and what he would want to see inside a business in two weeks before signing off the hire. On sales cycles, his view is that almost every technology business quotes six to nine months and almost every one of them is wrong. He explains where the number comes from - opportunities created in the CRM, worked, disqualified when they stall, then recreated when the buyer returns ready to move, with the clock restarting at the recreation. Underneath that is a deeper problem: the whole industry measures its own sales process rather than the buyer's journey through business case, financial planning cycle, RFP and procurement governance. The deal segment covers the biggest of his career, a little over $20m, and the divisional CTO who was fired the day he was due to sign. James makes the case for structuring deals to be impact-resistant, and explains why enterprise cycles run eighteen months for reasons no amount of persuasion can compress. On telling a bad hire from a bad system, he argues that booked revenue is a lagging indicator and that mediocre sellers hide behind long cycles. He sets out the two things he tests that a conventional track-record interview misses: whether a seller has a three-dimensional read of the terrain, and whether they can actually elicit the information rather than recite the framework they were trained on. The episode closes on frameworks, where he thinks implementation matters more than which acronym you pick, and on where AI belongs in a complex institutional sale. The closing round covers the best hire he ever made, who was poor at the one thing sellers are judged on, the question he always asks a senior candidate, and what he has changed his mind about in the last year. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 00:53 What has to be true before you hire a commercial leader 02:12 The right CV for the wrong stage 03:23 Two weeks inside the business: what to look for 04:30 Why the six to nine month sales cycle is wrong 06:39 Where the clock should start 07:37 The $20m deal and the CTO fired on signing day 09:16 Why enterprise cycles really run eighteen months 10:48 When to keep going on a seven-figure pursuit 13:04 Hire or enable: a bad hire or a bad system 14:24 What a search process should test 17:04 The first ninety days 17:50 Frameworks, and why implementation matters more 19:47 Where AI earns its place in an institutional sale 23:32 Closing round 27:38 Where to find James RESOURCES James Barker on LinkedIn GTM Hive ABOUT THE GUEST James Barker is the founder of GTM Hive, which advises and trains commercial teams at growth-stage FS-tech businesses. Previously Chief Commercial Officer at Bud, and commercial leadership roles at Mambu and Backbase. He hosts the Hivemind podcast.

    "A Convenient Illusion" - What Has To Be True Before You Hire a CRO | James Barker, GTM Hive

  4. Aug 10

    The Translation Layer - How the Institutional Core moves onchain | Renée Berman, Motive Partners

    The Translation Layer - Renée Berman, Industry Partner, Motive Partners Renée Berman has spent her career inside the machinery of US capital markets and now works on moving it on-chain. She was COO for equity derivatives at Credit Suisse, ran Capital Market Strategy at Broadridge, and was a Managing Director in digital asset strategy at DTCC, which clears and settles almost every trade in America. She is now an Industry Partner at Motive Partners, working with the portfolio on digital asset strategy and with the VC arm on where to deploy. Renée sets out the three routes the SEC has approved for tokenising an equity and why she thinks all three survive: the derivative model built by Robinhood, Kraken and Ondo for investors overseas who cannot easily get exposure to US stocks; native issuance through a digital transfer agent, advocated by Superstate and Securitize with Computershare now entering; and the entitlement model DTC is building, where the security moves into a control account and a token is minted into the participant's wallet. On digital money, her read is that stablecoins have found genuine product-market fit in remittances and cross-border payments, and that the GENIUS Act rules being written now open the door to issuer-led stablecoins from large corporates paying suppliers overseas. We also cover why collateral mobility is the use case institutions actually care about, where a firm starts when it cannot rip out fifty years of technology, and the risk frameworks that have to exist before a regulator or a risk committee signs anything off. Renée is writing Motive Partners' white paper on blockchain and agentic AI. She sets out what that looks like applied to collateral: an optimisation tool instructing an agent, securities moving instantly by smart contract because the underlying assets are already tokenised, no human in the loop. The second half covers her career from Bain and Bridgespan through Credit Suisse, Broadridge and DTCC, what each side of the TradFi and Web3 divide gets wrong about the other, what earns a yes from Motive, and a quickfire round that includes the best hire she ever made, who was not on the shortlist she was handed. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 00:38 Tokenisation as rails. Crypto, stablecoins and tokenised RWAs, and where each stands 04:22 The three routes the SEC has approved for tokenising an equity 08:17 DTC's tokenisation service, the chains, and collateral mobility 10:35 Where an institution starts, and the risk frameworks behind it 13:42 Blockchain and agentic AI: the Motive Partners white paper 16:07 Career: Bain, Bridgespan, the foundations, Credit Suisse, Broadridge, DTCC 18:40 The seat between TradFi and Web3 20:14 What Motive looks for before backing a founder 21:02 Quickfire round 24:00 Where to find Renée RESOURCES Building the Digital Asset Securities Ecosystem - DTCC, Clearstream and Euroclear with BCG, introducing the Digital Asset Securities Control Principles: https://www.dtcc.com/-/media/DASCPWhitePaper.pdf Risk Mitigation Framework - GBBC and Oliver Wyman: https://www.gbbc.io/news/risk-mitigation-framework Renée Berman on LinkedIn ABOUT THE GUEST Renée Berman is an Industry Partner at Motive Partners. Previously Managing Director in digital asset strategy at DTCC, Capital Market Strategy at Broadridge, and COO for equity derivatives at Credit Suisse. Earlier at Bain, Goldman Sachs Foundation and JP Morgan.

    The Translation Layer - How the Institutional Core moves onchain | Renée Berman, Motive Partners

  5. Jul 9

    Regulated to Lead - How Europe's Digital Finance Rules Were Built| JB Graftieaux, GM Europe Coinbase

    For the latest Rubix Unlocked I sat down with Jean-Baptiste Graftieaux, who runs Coinbase's European business from Luxembourg. He ran EMEA compliance at PayPal, then in 2014 left to help build Bitstamp into Europe's first regulated crypto company. MiCA's transition period ended this month, and any firm still operating in Europe without a licence now has to stop. His take on regulation is one I'd push most founders on. He doesn't see a licence as a cost or a constraint. It's what lets you sell to institutional clients in the first place, and the firms that treated compliance as something imposed on them are getting caught out now. There are still 200-plus MiCA applications sitting in the queue across Europe. He doesn't think most of them get through, and expects real consolidation on the back of it. On hiring, when JB brings people in now, on top of the usual experience he wants two things: people who genuinely follow the crypto market, and people already using AI in how they work day to day. He was clear that second one is increasingly what separates candidates. Worth a listen if you're building out a digital assets leadership team this year.

    Regulated to Lead - How Europe's Digital Finance Rules Were Built| JB Graftieaux, GM Europe Coinbase

  6. Apr 13

    The Operator Behind the Operator | Rachel Ramsay, Chief of Staff at BCB Group

    Most people assume the Chief of Staff role belongs to someone from strategy or consulting. Rachel Ramsay came from People and HR — and it turned out to be exactly the right preparation. In this episode of Rubix Unlocked, Sachin Doshi sits down with Rachel Ramsay, Chief of Staff at BCB Group, to unpack what the CoS role actually demands, how influence works without formal authority, and why the people lens belongs at the centre of every strategic decision — not the edge of it. They also get into what BCB Group are building: a regulated payments infrastructure business that moved over $250 billion through their BLINC instant settlements network in 2025, serving 400+ clients across the UK, Europe, South Africa and beyond. This episode covers: — The unconventional path from HR and People to Chief of Staff — Driving accountability without formal authority — Why OKRs fail — and what actually works instead — The talent profile BCB looks for at the intersection of TradFi and digital assets — What it signals when a business decides it needs a CoS — Scaling culture across multiple geographies simultaneously This isn't a crypto story. It's a leadership and payments infrastructure story. The Operator Behind the Operator — with Rachel Ramsay, Chief of Staff, BCB Group.

    The Operator Behind the Operator | Rachel Ramsay, Chief of Staff at BCB Group

  7. Mar 13

    The ETF Moment - How Tokenisation is Reshaping Finance | Jürgen Blumberg, COO of Centrifuge

    In this episode, Jürgen Blumberg, COO at Centrifuge and CIO at Anemoy, discusses his transition from traditional finance to DeFi, the potential of tokenization, and the convergence of DeFi and TradFi. He also shares insights on leadership, technology, and the challenges of being an early mover in the industry. Takeaways Tokenization's potential to reshape financeThe importance of hiring people who are better than oneselfOn-chain capital currently represents roughly 2% of traditional finance — which means the growth story is almost entirely still aheadThe regulatory journey in tokenisation is moving from exploration to implementation — and the jurisdictions that move first will attract the assets. Chapters 00:00 Transition from Traditional Finance to DeFi07:09 Comparing ETF Landscape and Tokenization18:14 On-Chain Index Fund vs. Traditional ETF31:04 Building a Diverse Team39:02 Leadership and Early Stage Challenges44:14 Quick Fire Round

    The ETF Moment - How Tokenisation is Reshaping Finance | Jürgen Blumberg, COO of Centrifuge
  • 7 Episodes

About

Rubix Unlocked is a conversation series with the people building financial infrastructure and the businesses running on top of it. Host Sachin Doshi is Founder and CEO of Rubix Partners, a retained executive search firm working at leadership level across fintech, digital assets and high-growth B2B technology. The guests are people he'd be speaking to anyway through the search desk: founders at an inflection point, operators partway through a transformation they haven't finished yet, and the investors funding both. Guests have included JB Graftieaux (CEO EMEA, Coinbase), Renée Berman (Partner, Motive Partners), Jürgen Blumberg (Centrifuge), Robin Gilthorpe (CEO, Earnix) and Steffen Vollert (CEO, Volt). The show weights towards fintech and digital assets because that's where Rubix works most deeply. The questions run wider. How do you hire for a function that didn't exist three years ago? What actually changes inside an institution when its core moves on-chain? Most of what gets said publicly about this market is positioning. These conversations go after the operating detail underneath it - what the decision looked like at the time, what it cost, what the person would do differently now. Useful if you're running a business in this space, backing one, or working out where your own career sits inside it. Episodes run 25-35 minutes. New episodes monthly. Rubix Unlocked. Conversations from the search desk.

Information

  • Creator
    Sachin Doshi
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    7
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Sachin Doshi