Meet the GDA team
GDA team founders & board of directors
Michael Gord is the co-founder & CEO of Global Digital Assets (GDA) Group of Companies, which are focused across capital markets verticals in the blockchain industry. Michael is also the Managing Director of the XDB Foundation, the leading blockchain protocol focused on consumer digital assets, and was previously the CEO of MLG Blockchain, focused on enterprise and government consulting and development. Michael has advised on over $20.5 Billion in digital asset offerings, helped to secure over $5 Billion in asset placements onto the blockchain and has worked with Fortune 500 companies and global governments. Michael was one of the first advocates for digital assets in Canada, built the first university communities for blockchains in Canada and was the first enterprise blockchain developer that TD Bank hired. Michael has introduced digital assets to tens of thousands of people through his initiatives.
David is a serial entrepreneur with a proven track record of bringing disruptive technology to market and generating strong returns for investors. David excels at identifying value, creating a vision and executing said vision through sound strategic development. David intuitively sees the various threads of opportunity that wind throughout an organization and uses his strong relationship skills and industry insights to bring these opportunities together into a coherent objective. David was the catalyst behind bringing 4 ventures from the technology and advertising space to market. Since those exits, David has gone on to launch Secure Digital Markets followed by Global Digital Assets, where he occupies the roles of CEO & Executive Chairman respectively. Through these roles, David has committed himself to facilitating digital asset liquidity and blockchain adoption on a global scale.
Zachary Friedman is the co-founder & COO of Global Digital Assets (GDA) and its portfolio Companies, which span across a variety of capital markets verticals in the blockchain industry. Zachary is also the COO of Secure Digital Markets (SDM), a leading global digital asset brokerage and holds advisory positions at several notable emerging technology companies. Through his time at SDM, Zachary has worked with world leading institutions, Family offices, governments, exchanges and Fortune 500 companies alike. He has facilitated first-hand over $2 billion of digital asset transactions. Prior to making his foray into blockchain, Zachary has scaled ventures in both the consumer tech, and pharmaceutical industries, with a notable exit to wework in 2015. Zachary who is extremely passionate about entrepreneurship previously launched his own accelerator W5 and co-produced Elevate Toronto, Canada’s largest technology conference
GDA team leadership
Alex Dohi
Head of Corporate Strategy and Compliance
Diana Nguyen
Office Manager
Calvin Leyon
Consultant, Technical Development
James Godfrey
SVP, International Banking
Joaquim Miro
Founding Partner SVP, Global Growth
Richard Zhou
VP, Finance
Rich was previously the Controller and Head of FP&A for a Canadian Challenger bank, where he raised over $60M of Venture Capital funds. Prior, he has also been involved in large M&A transactions such as the Walmart Canada Bank sale. He is a Canadian who was originally from China and has lived in Japan.
Ori Ohayon
Associate, Corporate Development
Mariana Zamriga
Director, HR
Matthew Zanardo
Associate, Ventures
Jonah Mirsky
VP, Digital Asset Offerings
Jonah was previously head of IR at Secure Digital Markets where he built relationships with institutional capital groups. Jonah now increases scale and distribution of digital assets by managing multi-touch marketing campaigns. Jonah has entrepreneurship major from Dalhousie’s Rowe School of business.
Grady Teske
VP, Marketing
Grady focuses on developing platforms, connecting markets through community enhancements.
He has also experience in building businesses for sustained success while improving stakeholders lives.
Ekaterina Gorzheltson
Director, Finance
Daniel Shakhmundes
Lead Developer for RARE
Ashley Moore
VP, Sales
Jean-Luc Gustave
VP, Asia
Will Bartlett
VP, Research
Michael Van De Velde
Senior Manager, Financial Reporting
Alexandra MukhamedGaliyeva
VP, Accounting
Karen Lam
Analyst, Global Research
Renata Zairetdinova
Analyst, Capital Markets
Melodie Buttigieg
Coordinator, Human Resources
Luka Kremic
Capital Markets Analyst
Jaineel Patel
Associate, Community
Tali Friedman
Coordinator, Social Media/ Events
Akshay Sood
Research Analyst
Gabriel Barbera
Web Developer
Gabriel is the web developer of GDA. He is a Front End Developer and Graphic Designer with more than 10 years of experience working with Front End Technologies like HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript and popular CMS like WordPress/Woocommerce. He has a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design, working in this field mainly in Branding and Web Design, using Software like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Adobe XD, Figma, and InVision.
Jake Rappaport
Coordinator, Social Media & Community
Morgan Davies
Financial Analyst
Morgan Davies is a Financial Analyst at GDA Group, performing monthly analysis and presentations for management on portfolio companies, as well as weekly analysis of investments including digital assets and equities. He is responsible for ad hoc investment related financial models and presentations including valuations, forecasts, and raise materials. He also helps run accounting operations including cash management, A/R A/P, and reconciliation. He has a degree from Western University in chemical engineering and has previously held engineering consulting and start-up sales roles.
Aziza Raimova
Financial Analyst
Ryan Mueller
VP, COMPLIANCE
Nate B.
GRAPHIC DESIGNER