Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, has appointed co-founder Yi He as Co-Chief Executive Officer, placing her alongside Richard Teng at the head of the company. The appointment was announced on 3 December 2025 at Binance Blockchain Week in Dubai, as the exchange said it was approaching 300 million registered users.
Yi He co-founded Binance in 2017 and has been central to its brand, marketing and customer strategy since inception, most recently serving as Chief Customer Service Officer. Teng, a former regulator who led the Financial Services Regulatory Authority at Abu Dhabi Global Market and served as Chief Regulatory Officer of the Singapore Exchange, had been sole CEO since November 2023.
"I am honored to build alongside Richard, who brings decades of experience in regulated financial markets and was among the first to regulate crypto in its early days," Yi He said. "Together, we bring diverse perspectives and are confident in leading the future of the industry during this pivotal time, as we responsibly expand our global presence and drive sustainable innovation with our users always at the center."
The dual structure formalizes what much of the industry already understood: founder influence at Binance did not leave with its former chief executive. Pairing a founder who owns the customer franchise with a former regulator who owns the institutional relationships is a deliberate signal to both audiences at once, users on one side, supervisors on the other.
For boards and executives in digital assets, the appointment underlines two currents worth watching. First, co-CEO structures, rare and often fragile in conventional finance, are being used in crypto to reconcile founder legitimacy with regulatory credibility; whether the balance holds will be a governance test case for the sector. Second, the choice of Dubai as the announcement stage reflects where the industry now concentrates its leadership presence, and executives building careers in digital assets should read the geography as carefully as the org chart.
