BlockQuake has assembled a diverse team with experience in auditing, accounting, finance, business development, compliance, regulatory, estate and trust administration, trading platform development, website development and legal. Our regulatory specialists have expertise in Anti Money Laundering (AML), Know Your Customer (KYC) and cyber security. Collectively, our team has over a hundred years of experience in the U.S. and global financial services industry.
Prior to joining BlockQuake, Kyle spent 8 years working as a financial advisor to high net worth, ultra high net worth, and boutique institutional clients. For the last 3 years, Kyle worked at JP Morgan as part of the Canell Sports and Entertainment Group, a team with over 1.5 billion in AUM specializing in high profile clientele. During his tenure at JP Morgan, Kyle acquired and managed relationships with high profile and high networth clients in addition to advising clients in the areas of financial planning, investment management, and liquidity event tax planning. Prior to joining JP Morgan, Kyle worked in the same capacity at Morgan Stanley.
Kyle began his career working in boutique investment firms, helping to create and distribute customized financial products designed to give investors access to private market deals and liquidity solutions, pre-IPO.
Kyle holds a B.S. in Finance and Accounting from St. Francis University (PA) as well as the following licenses: FINRA Series 7, 63, 66 and Life, Accident, and Health Insurance.
Randy Shrikishun
Director of Research
Randy has over 20 years of experience in the financial services industry with a primary focus on financial analysis, forecasting, and equity research. His main areas of concentration as a senior analyst and editor at Value Line were in the information technology, e-commerce, defense, and banking sectors. He was also the head of the Options Department where he developed investment strategies, monitored the performance of multiple options portfolios, and authored comprehensive articles detailing various investment methods for derivatives securities. In addition, Randy has worked as a financial advisor for Morgan Stanley and in the treasury and capital markets divisions of the risk management department at Mizuho Bank. His trading experience includes both large- and small-cap stocks, ETF’s, and futures, among other securities. Randy holds a B.S. in Finance and International Business from the Stern School of Business at New York University.
Sam Hyun
Chief Strategist / Cryptocurrency Markets
With over 5 years of experience trading Cryptocurrencies, Sam has a deep understanding of working with Centralized and Decentralized Cryptocurrency exchanges & trading platforms as well as a tight grasp on Cryptocurrency markets concerning financial markets.
Prior to joining BlockQuake, Sam was an Associate in Barclay’s Treasury Liquidity Risk department where he oversaw the Liquidity Coverage Ratio short-term resilience of the liquidity risk profile and facilitated various projects within the development of the Stress Engine tool. Previously he was Senior Analyst at AIG and was the Subject Matter Expert within the Actuarial Science, and Modeling Department providing data analytical and strategic expertise to clients within the Internal Audit Group. Sam holds a B.S. in Mathematics and Economics from New York University.
Samuel Brasse
Chief Business Officer
Samuel has over 20 years of experience analyzing, preparing and reviewing financial statements and providing decision support services to senior management. He has assembled and led high-performance teams in environments of rapid growth, turnaround and business restructuring and is adept at identifying solutions to various complex operational and financial issues. Samuel is an entrepreneur and since 2004 has been a General Partner and founding member in BELLA LUCA™- a real estate development and commercial/residential building enterprise.
Prior to joining BlockQuake, Samuel founded Financial and Healthcare Consultant (FHCCS) in 2012 where he led a team of highly skilled consultants advising hospital and physician practice groups on financial and operational matters as well as various acquisitions and divestitures by performing due diligence services. He also worked closely with private equity and venture capitalist groups of both buyers and sellers. Previously, Samuel spent over 12 years as a Senior Business Operations and Finance Analyst at Fresenius Medical Care (FMC), a publicly traded company and the global leader in providing End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) treatments to patients and sales of related pharmaceutical products and medical supplies.
During his tenure with FMC, Samuel was an integral part of the team responsible for analyzing the organization’s acquisitions and divestitures which totaled over two billion dollars. In addition, he worked cross-functionally to develop a clinic by clinic patient and treatment budget/forecast for over 400 cost/profit centers and prepared financial feasibility studies to assess current operations and new business opportunities relating to capital spend. The territory Samuel and his team covered exceeded one billion in annual revenues and he was also a key team member responsible for the organization’s month-end close. Samuel began his career as an auditor with the New York City Comptrollers’ Office.
Samuel holds a B.S. in Accounting with a minor in Computer Science from City University of New York – Brooklyn College.
Antonio Brasse
CPA, CIA, CFSA, CISA, CAMS
CEO & Co-Founder
Antonio is one of the founders and CEO of BlockQuake™. He has nearly two decades of regulatory, financial, operational and technology audit experience within the financial services industry. His personal trading experience included stocks, options, and forex before delving into cryptocurrency trading.
Prior to co-founding BlockQuake, Antonio spent much of his career at AIG, Citi and New York Life. Antonio was Vice President at Citi where he conducted global and domestic data governance audits at the Chief Data Office and AML and Compliance business unit levels. He managed corrective action plans for regulatory and audit issues identified across the Citi enterprise, including corporate functions, treasury, liquidity risk, market risk and CCAR. Additionally, he oversaw audits focused on data governance and management, including data quality and data privacy.
During his tenure at AIG, Antonio was a Technology Audit Manager where he planned and implemented integrated IT audits for a variety of corporate functions such as the Treasury and FX operation areas, human resources, vendor management and external facing websites, as well as insurance functions. He assessed the company’s system change initiatives by analyzing the IT pre- and post-system implementation processes.
Antonio was an Internal Auditor at New York Life for IT, Investment and Insurance operations where he evaluated the IT change management and Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) processes and conducted audits of system access, both digital and physical. He performed domestic and international, in-country audits in the operations, investments, IT and financial reporting areas. In addition, Antonio performed fraud investigations and conducted risk assessments in order to determine audit scope and controls.
Antonio holds a B.S. in Accounting and Computer Science from City University of New York – Brooklyn College as well as the following certifications:
CPA (Certified Public Accountant; Licensed in NY State)
CIA (Certified Internal Auditor)
CFSA (Certified Financial Services Auditor – Banking and Insurance)
CISA (Certified Information Systems Auditor)
CAMS (Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist by ACAMS covering Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing)
Ray Licata
Chief Information Officer
Ray has 20 years experience in building financial, web-based applications and leading software teams in development of applications to solve data management, trading, reporting, transaction management, and data quality issues.
Before joining BlockQuake, Ray spent 15 years at AIG, where he held roles spanning from programming to systems design and development and most recently as IT Manager. Over the course of his tenure at AIG, Ray oversaw development of custom, web-based financial applications and designed and implemented a web-based Treasury reporting application using Agile and Waterfall methodologies. Ray is a subject matter expert on compliance, audit, SOX, and regulatory issues in addition to disaster recovery and all aspects of the software development life cycle (SDLC). Ray holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Lehigh University.
Steward Kwan
Chief Creative Officer
Steward is the founder and owner of two successful entertainment businesses SK Creative Services and SK Entertainment which have seen substantial financial growth since inception in 2010. He has over 16 years of event planning & media relations experience. He has hosted business conferences and web and product training for several corporations and Fortune 500 companies. He has been working with companies like Peloton, Razorfish, HHC, Columbia University, ADRC, Shop.com and many more. He is Microsoft Certified MCSE with experience in video editing, audio engineering, and web development.
Caitlin Stilin-Rooney
Project Manager
Caitlin co-developed the Cotedemi Women’s Business Cooperative on the Dominican Republic/Haiti border where she worked with an international women’s bank to build banking products for marginalized communities. In 2016 she worked on MIT’s Blockchain Border Bank project.
Michael Wilson
Director of Business Systems
With over 30 years of experience as an IT business Project Manager and Senior Analyst in the banking, telecommunications and insurance industries, Michael’s expertise includes the software development life cycle (SDLC), enterprise risk management, requirements analysis, enterprise architecture, MIS reporting as well as web and application development.
Prior to joining BlockQuake, Michael was a Senior Business Analyst at AIG leading the development and implementation of a business plan application for the Internal Auditing Department. He also managed the analysis, design, coding, and testing of dynamic web-based global MIS reports and served as the administrator for various databases and the Intranet Site. Previously, Michael served as AVP at JPMorgan Chase where he spearheaded a variety of cost-saving systems initiatives including automating a process to consolidate information from over 30 sources into a custom application in order to streamline the branch audit process. Early in his career, Michael served s a technical consultant for client AT&T in its Commercial and Retail Management and Marketing division. He began his career as a programmer at Chemical Bank (now JP Morgan Chase) where he created a reporting platform that provided automated reports to branches throughout the U.S. He holds a B.S. in Business and Information Science from Long Island University and an A.A.S. in Electrical Engineering from New York City Technical College.