Avinash Shekhar

Avinash Shekhar is Founder of TaxNodes, building New Startup in Crypto and Web3 Space. Formerly, Chief Executive Officer at ZebPay.

Becoming CEO is the dream and goal of every ambitious CFO. I dreamt that dream and in 2021, realised it.

I joined Zebpay in mid-2017 as CFO and have seen multiple ups and downs.

Participated in the first Bitcoin boom of December 2017, when the volumes suddenly grew by 12 times. Then came the RBI notification of April 2018, mandating regulated entities (banks) to stop working with crypto companies or enabling crypto-fiat transactions. This forced us to close our India exchange in September 2018.

During that crypto winter, we kept lakhs of customer accounts secure, adding new features like India’s first multi-signature wallet infrastructure. We established new businesses in Malta, Australia, and Singapore with both successes and failures. And we worked with other firms to lobby for change.

In January 2020, ZebPay’s founders (Mahin Gupta, Sunny Goenka, and Saurabh Agrawal) exited the company The new management (Rahul Pagdipati and Ayon Capital) asked me to stay on as CFO, in a new leadership team with a fresh approach.

In March 2020, the Industry won its case in the Honourable Supreme Court, overturning the RBI notification. Anticipating this win, in the weeks prior, my team and I had quietly prepared to resume working with payment partners. When the decision came, we were ready to accept rupee deposits and restart crypto-INR trading in India within hours.

I had started looking after operations due to the leadership vacuum created by the departure of the founders. To formalize that role, I was promoted to Chief Operating Officer (COO) and in April 2021, to Co-Chief Executive Officer (Co-CEO)

It’s my first job as CEO of an organization. I am confident that my experience in business finance, people management, and a great team will help me to succeed.

It seems that the journey of the crypto industry and my own journey as CEO has just begun. I look forward to challenging and interesting times ahead.