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Och-Ziff's Haas Departs Hedge Fund Firm to Join Coinbase as CFO

Och-Ziff's Haas Departs Hedge Fund Firm to Join Coinbase as CFO

(Bloomberg) -- Alesia Haas, the chief financial officer at Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC, is leaving the investment firm after a year and a half to join cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Inc.

Haas will stay on at the $32 billion hedge fund firm until June 1, Och-Ziff said in a statement on Tuesday. Coinbase Chief Operating Officer Asiff Hirji said in a blog post that Haas will begin immediately, while helping with the transition at New York-based Och-Ziff.

Her departure from the U.S.’s largest publicly traded hedge fund firm adds to the growing number of financial professionals seeking opportunities in digital currencies as that market gains traction among mainstream investors. Coinbase, which helps investors buy and sell Bitcoin and other major virtual currencies, will leverage Haas’s experience in the financial industry to “accelerate our goal of building a world-class financial team that scales the company through this period of profound growth,” Hirji wrote.

Coinbase has made several big hires recently. The San Francisco-based company on Monday named Balaji Srinivasan, co-founder of Earn.com, as chief technology officer after acquiring his company. Last month, it hired LinkedIn Corp. dealmaker Emilie Choi as vice president of corporate and business development. In January, it added Tina Bhatnagar from Twitter Inc. to lead customer support as vice president of operations and technology.

Och-Ziff, which has seen assets shrink and a number of executives depart as its struggled to overcome a corruption scandal, on Tuesday appointed former Credit Suisse Group AG executive Thomas Sipp as its new CFO.

--With assistance from Camila Russo

To contact the reporter on this story: Katia Porzecanski in New York at kporzecansk1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Margaret Collins at mcollins45@bloomberg.net, Josh Friedman, David Scheer

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