Coinbase CFO Alesia Haas on the strategic role of finance chiefs and why she’s ‘bullish on AI’

Good morning. What would lure a CFO working in traditional finance to the world of cryptocurrencies? For one, it was the desire to help usher in a wave of technological change for financial services.

Alesia Haas joined Coinbase as CFO in 2018 after previously serving as finance chief for Sculptor Capital Management (formerly Och Ziff Capital Management Group), a global institutional alternative asset manager. She also served as CFO and head of strategy for OneWest Bank, and she's held senior roles at Merrill Lynch and General Electric.

Coinbase, the largest centralized crypto exchange in the U.S., posted $273 million in net income for the fourth quarter of 2023, putting the net profitability for all of 2023 at $95 million.

“I'm old enough that I grew up in the early internet era and have just watched the transformation of how technology creates new use cases,” Haas told me during a conversation on March 28. “When I learned about blockchain, I could see that if you tokenize real-world assets—and send value peer to peer—that was going to create a more inclusive, faster, and cheaper financial system. And that was such an exciting thing to be a part of.”

Now is an exciting time for crypto enthusiasts, as Bitcoin recently hit a fresh all-time high of more than $72,000, and Coinbase topped its direct listing price for the first time since December 2021. “When you look at the one-, three-, five-, and 10-year return of Bitcoin against every other asset, it has been one of the top performing assets over any other comparable,” Haas said.

Although she’s now focused on digital assets, the fundamentals of being an effective CFO haven't changed, she told me.

“This is my third CFO role,” Haas said. “What happens at Coinbase is very similar to the roles that I had in traditional financial services: You have to be a thought leader, you have to be a key member of the executive team involved in all parts of the business, you're part of a critical team to drive strategic resource allocation, drive a strong control environment, and represent the voice of the investor among the executive team.”

Also, she added: “It's a really fun role.” And for many CFOs, their roles are changing alongside wide adoption of AI. How about for Haas?

"Perhaps it’s because I came to Coinbase, and I'm such a bull on crypto technology, I'm also very bullish on AI technology,” she said. “All technology can provide value, in my opinion. You have to understand the risks of all technology, and then you have to protect against those risks.”

It's not the first time technological innovation will reshape how business is done, she noted. With AI, the biggest boon could be significant productivity gains. "I think we're going to learn how to do things in different ways. It's going to be game-changing."

And not just for her—or for Coinbase.

"I have three girls," she added, "and I tell them that it's an exciting time to be alive.”

For more of Haas's insights on the future of finance, you can read the complete interview here.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com