Binance names co-founder Yi He as co-CEO, alongside Richard Teng, making her one of the few women leading a crypto company; she also has children with ex-CEO CZ
The world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange announced a significant leadership move on Wednesday, naming longtime executive …
Context & Ripple Effects
Yi He had already been a central Binance operator, with earlier coverage describing her control over marketing and investment functions and later examining her role through the company’s crisis year while CZ was in prison. Her elevation makes that long-standing influence formal at the top of the organization.
The move adds a co-CEO to a governance structure that Binance began formalizing with its first board of directors in 2024. It also pairs Yi He with Richard Teng, whose potential succession had surfaced earlier amid heightened regulatory scrutiny.
First-order effects
- Yi He gains formal co-CEO authority alongside Richard Teng, turning a longtime executive role into an explicit shared leadership arrangement.
- Binance’s top leadership now combines Teng’s existing CEO role with Yi He’s experience across the company’s marketing and investment operations, previously detailed in a profile of her internal remit.
Second-order effects
- Customers, partners and other counterparties must evaluate Binance through a two-executive leadership structure rather than a single CEO, making the division of responsibilities more consequential.
- The promotion gives Binance a more visible internal co-founder at the top while preserving Teng’s role, potentially strengthening continuity between the company’s operating leadership and its founding-era management.
Third-order effects
- If major crypto platforms continue to formalize shared executive and board structures after founder-led crises, leadership succession may become a more durable competitive and governance issue for the sector.
- The appointment also makes women’s representation in senior crypto leadership more visible, though one promotion alone does not establish an industry-wide shift.
The trend: Crypto exchanges are moving from founder-centric control toward more formalized, multi-executive governance structures.