Brevan Howard's crypto division CEO Gautam Sharma departs after five years

Gautam Sharma, the CEO of Brevan Howard's digital assets division, is out after a five-year run. This could shake things up for the division, which has ballooned to manage a hefty $2 billion in assets.

Per a Bloomberg report, Brevan Howard isn't planning to replace him. Meanwhile, they just promoted Chris Rayner-Cook—ex-head of global trading at Coinbase—to chief investment officer of the digital assets squad back in May.

The division is stacked with over 10 portfolio managers, 13 investment pros, and 15 blockchain engineers. Sharma started as head of principal investments and worked closely with co-founder Alan Howard on his family's crypto plays. Before that, he was COO at Steadview Capital and did time at McKinsey.

Brevan Howard stayed mum when Cointelegraph reached out, and Sharma hasn't responded yet. The hedge fund is based in Jersey with global offices and manages over $34 billion in assets as of April 2025. Their digital arm, launched in September 2021, saw funds gain 51.3% in 2024 thanks to crypto's macro upswing.

Hiring is heating up in crypto lately. TradFi firms are snapping up senior roles amid clearer global regs for Web3. Cointelegraph reports that the top-paying gigs include quants in DeFi, legal and COO spots with fat equity, and influencers raking it in (but with major risk).

Related reads: Trump's crypto-AI tsar David Sacks calling AI job loss 'overhyped', and a deep dive into dystopian AI tools in the latest magazine issue.