Stellar.org connects people to low-cost financial services to fight poverty and develop individual potential.
Interested? We’re hiring! Explore jobs at Stellar.org.
Team
Bartek Nowotarski
Developer
Bartek Nowotarski is a software engineer focusing on web applications security. He has a masters in computer science from Jagiellonian University. Before joining Stellar, Bartek worked as a lead developer and security consultant, and he has found vulnerabilities in high-profile sites such as Facebook and Yahoo.
David Mazières
Chief Scientist
David Mazières is a professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where he leads the Secure Computer Systems Group. Prof. Mazières received a BS in Computer Science from Harvard and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. His research interests include Operating Systems and Distributed Systems, with a focus on security.
Jed McCaleb
Stellar Developer
Jed McCaleb is a co-founder of Stellar Development Foundation. Previously, he created eDonkey2000 which became one of the largest file-sharing networks in its time. He later created Mt. Gox, the first bitcoin exchange, which was subsequently sold and re-coded by its current owners, followed by Ripple.
Lisa Nestor
Partnerships
Lisa is researcher and business strategist with a passion for financial empowerment. Prior to joining Stellar Lisa was a business development volunteer with the Peace Corps (Mauritania ’07-’09), led operations and partnerships for a portfolio of research studies at the Centre for Micorfinance (India) and most recently led product marketing and growth at Payoff. Lisa holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson.
Nicolas Barry
CTO
Nicolas is excited by turning potential technology into something practical that benefits most. He likes to tinker with software and tackle hard distributed problems. He previously helped build large scale systems at Microsoft and Salesforce. Nicolas holds a MS in Computer Science and Mathematics from ENSEEIHT in Toulouse, France.
Rafał Malinowski
Developer
Rafał is a software developer with great passion for C++.
In free time he works on two open source projects – Kadu and Injeqt. When the weather is right he likes to ride a bike and fly a glider.
Scott Fleckenstein
Developer
Scott has been writing code professionally since graduating from high school. Prior to Stellar, he worked as Lead Developer at Couchsurfing, Lead Engineer and Chief Architect at OpenFeint (acquired by GREE) and was Lead Engineer and on the founding team for Get Satisfaction.
Board Members
Keith Rabois
Investment Partner, Khosla Ventures
Keith has been a key player in shaping the future of money having served as a senior executive at Paypal, COO at Square and board member at Xoom, as well as being a board member at Yelp and a VP of business development at LinkedIn. Keith is an investment partner at Khosla Ventures and was an early investor in Youtube, Yammer, Palantir, Lyft, Airbnb, Eventbrite and Quora.
Shivani Siroya
CEO of InVenture
Shivani is the CEO of InVenture which facilitates financial access by offering credit via mobile devices in Kenya and Tanzania. Shivani has experiences in global health, microfinance, and investment banking at UNFPA, Health Net, and Citigroup. She is a 2013 TED Fellow and is also on the board of the LA Chapter of Young Women Social Entrepreneurs.
Greg Brockman
Former CTO at Stripe
Greg Brockman is the former CTO of Stripe, which he helped build from 4 to over 250 employees. He studied math at Harvard and computer science at MIT. He’s written and spoken extensively about how cryptocurrencies can succeed.
Advisors
Patrick Collison
CEO of Stripe
Patrick is cofounder and CEO of Stripe. He also serves on Y Combinator’s board of overseers and studied math at MIT. He likes distributed infrastructure and bought his first bitcoin in 2011.
Greg Stein
Director at the Apache Software Foundation
Greg is an avid open-software advocate, developer, and lecturer. Member of the Python Software Foundation and a founding member of the Subversion Project. Greg was instrumental in launching Google’s open-source hosting platform.
Matt Mullenweg
Founder of WordPress.com
Matt is the founder and CEO of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com. He is also a social media entrepreneur, developer, lecturer and musician. Matt is a very active angel investor, named on Forbes’ Most Influential Angel Investors on AngelList.
Naval Ravikant
Founder of AngelList
Naval is the CEO and a co-founder of AngelList. He previously co-founded Epinions (which went public as part of Shopping.com) and Vast.com. He is an active Angel investor, including Twitter, Uber, Yammer, Stack Overflow and Wanelo.
Ronaldo Lemos
Director, Institute for Technology & Society of Rio de Janeiro (ITSrio.org)
Ronaldo is a board member to the Mozilla Foundation and AccessNow. Ronaldo received an LL.M. from Harvard Law School and a Doctorate of Law from University of Sao Paulo. He is a partner at Pereira Neto Macedo and the project lead of the Creative Commons Brazil. Ronaldo was one of the creators behind Marco Civil da Internet, landmark legislation guaranteeing civil liberties and rights for the netizens of Brazil.
Sam Altman
President of Y Combinator
Sam is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, developer, and blogger. He is president of Y Combinator and former CEO and Co-Founder of Loopt, which was acquired by Greendot Corporation. He was named one of the “Best Young Entrepreneurs in Technology” by BusinessWeek.
Dan Kaminsky
Chief Scientist at White Ops
A technical advisor to Stellar, Dan is a security researcher. The Chief Scientist at White Ops, he has worked with Cisco, Avaya, and IOActive as Director of Penetration Testing. Reknown in computer security circles, Dan has discovered a myriad of exploits across different platforms.
Bhagwan Chowdhry
Professor at UCLA Anderson
Professor of Finance Bhagwan Chowdhry has been teaching at UCLA Anderson since 1988. His research interests are in international finance and corporate finance and strategy. In addition, more recently, he has been exploring applied topics such as microfinance, financial technology and impact investing. He is the creator of Financial Access at Birth (FAB), a frequent contributor to the Huffington Post and a globally renowned educator. Professor Chowdhry has been advising Stellar since 2015.
Adrian E. Martinez
Managing Principal at Lucinse
Adrian spent twenty four years in the Financial Services industry with HSBC and Household International. He has broad experience in global payments, personal banking, lending and risk management. His efforts are now focused on advisory in the Fintech space.
