Blockchain company XinFin (XDC) Network has hired Sunil Senapati as its chief operating officer for trade and payments.

Senapati joins XDC from MonetaGo, where he served for just over a year as head of business development for Asia Pacific (Apac). Prior to this, he was Bolero’s director of trade finance, Apac. His professional experience also includes spells with Oracle, Maersk, HCL and Tech Mahindra.

In his new role, based out of XinFin’s Singapore office, he will be tasked with spearheading company partnerships and expanding its partner network.

“As the world’s leading consensus algorithm and a more secure protocol, XinFin’s delegated proof-of-stake-based blockchain protocol makes it a very powerful option to dApps ecosystem partners,” says Senapati. “Having worked in the technology for over 20 years, I am a firm believer in the potential of XinFin and its strategy, and I look forward to developing the ecosystem.”

Welcoming Senapati to the role, Atul Khekade, XinFin’s co-founder says: “There’s no better time to be expanding XinFin, working closely with fintechs and trade finance participants and regulators. XinFin started its operations in Singapore and now is a global player. Sunil’s industry expertise will be invaluable as we scale.”

Last year, XinFin partnered with Tradeteq, a technology provider for trade finance asset distribution to complete the world’s first trade finance-based non-fungible token transaction. Earlier this year, the two companies launched Trada, a trade finance-backed security token that repackages trade finance assets and makes them available to retail investors with as little as CHF100 (US$104) to invest.