Fidelity Poaches Coinbase Institutional Sales Head Christine Sandler

Coinbase's director of institutional sales, Christine Sandler, has left the cryptocurrency startup for Fidelity Investments, one of the world's largest financial services providers, according to multiple industry sources.

Sandler, a long-time executive in the financial space, held positions with NYSE Euronext and Barclays Investment Bank before joining Coinbase in March 2018 to head up its institutional sales division.

It is not clear which part of Fidelity she is joining, but a logical candidate would be the recently launched Fidelity Digital Assets, a cryptocurrency custody and brokerage service for institutional investors.

According to one source, her departure stemmed from a change in the direction of Coinbase's institutional business.

Another of his hires at Coinbase, former head of trading Hunter Merghart, resigned in October.

Coinbase confirmed Sandler's departure but declined to comment further.

Attempts to reach Sandler by press time were unsuccessful.

Tom Jessop, Fidelity Digital Assets' president, previously told CoinDesk that the firm had developed an in-house framework to evaluate different cryptocurrencies, and it would most likely examine potential listings by looking at coins' market caps.

While FDAS has already on-boarded a select number of clients, Sandler's joining may indicate a renewed push to draw in major customers.

Christine Sandler at the BlockFS conference in 2018, image via Marc Hochstein for CoinDesk.