The new team member will focus their efforts on leading Ripple’s “strategy, partnerships and project work with central banks around the world with an initial focus on supporting their central bank digital currency (CBDC) initiatives on XRP Ledger.”

The roles pre-requisites outline the desire for a candidate who holds 10+ years experience in technology sales and has a track-record working alongside large financial institutions and central banks. They also discuss the need to “educate central bankers” within the ecosystem and the importance of establishing collaborative practise between different private and public financial groups.

The role is located in San Francisco, which is Ripple’s current headquarters - for now at least. A flurry of recent comments from the highest voices within the company allude to a growing dissatisfaction with the attitude of US regulatory bodies toward the crypto-space, lack of attention devoted to new technologies and even a potential move away from the Golden State.

Ripple’s Concerns

Ripple have made a series of public comments in recent months about the unwillingness of US policymakers, authorities and financial entities to embrace cryptocurrency and its underlying technology, warning of the implications that this reactive approach will have on both the malnutrition of domestic innovation and the global health of the US as a financial athlete.

In response, they have threatened to move operations outside of the US to a move crypto-friendly location. London and Dubai have been discussed as potential options if it comes to that.

In an interview at the LA Blockchain Summit last month, executive chairman Chris Larsen commented “I’ll be honest with you. We’re even looking at relocating our headquarters to a much more friendly jurisdiction… and that’s a shame.”

Larsen also wrote a piece for The Hill back in August imploring the US to protect their financial stewardship by investing and engaging in new technologies, or otherwise be over-taken by China in the ‘tech cold war’. Interestingly, he remarks that “there is still no digital dollar initiative.”

Ripple have also faced recent hurdles with rejected trademarks and of course the on-going SEC investigation into whether XRP is a security.

As the model of XRP is that of a ‘bridge asset’ which connects fiat-to-fiat, Ripple have always maintained the view that they aren’t direct competitors to central banks as many other cryptocurrencies, but rather allies of interoperability on the same economic endeavour.

It remains to be seen what Ripple’s outcome will be in terms of location and what the impact of this role will be in the months and years to come.