In June 2021, Nadine Chakar, the three-decades long industry veteran, was appointed to lead State Street Digital, a new business division. The division is designed to help institutional investors, regulators, and State Street itself successfully transition into a modern digital economy. State Street Digital will deal with a range of assets that includes cryptocurrency and central bank digital currency (CBDCs) while collaborating with its tech partners to employ distributed ledger technology (DLT) solutions and begin the rollout of smart contracts, which will automate the execution of financial contracts without costly intermediaries or processing delays.
"We have been developing a number of digital capabilities and other solutions as well as partnering and investing in the infrastructure that forms the foundation of State Street Digital," Chakar said. "State Street has a major role to play in the evolution of digital market infrastructure and this new division will help us bring our expertise and resources to the conversation."
Previously, Chakar was executive vice president and head of State Street global markets. In that role, she managed 2,000 employees across a number of businesses which included trading, financing, liquidity management, and research.
This year, Chakar's 400-member team made notable progress in delivering institutional-grade digital asset management and custody capabilities, which included the installation and integration of Copper software with existing bank applications and new operational processes (trade capture, reporting, etc.). In parallel, State Street's proprietary GlobalLink technology platform became an increasingly important component of State Street Digital as it expanded its support for trading and liquidity management to cryptocurrency.
In a rapidly changing and volatile digital economy, Chakar understands that education—for stakeholders of all types—is essential for continued prosperity. To assist the cryptocurrency-curious in better understanding the current state of all things digital, her team has partnered with Oxford Economics to launch a qualitative annual survey of global institutional investors. And recently, she launched the Street Digital Influencers Charter, which brings together clients, internal stakeholders, academics, regulators, and other industry influencers to examine and debate the most important issues that businesses face in the digital asset management and digital transformation space. As part of this initiative, in November 2022 the firm will hold its first digital influencers summit, a series of events which looks to put into action the goals outlined in the State Street Digital Influencers Charter. Per Chakar, the summit holds the potential to become a "mini-Digital Davos."
Sharing her views on the
State Street continues to work closely with regulators in the U.S to ensure that the firm is fully equipped (and compliant) to provide cutting-edge custodial services for cryptocurrencies. In a recent
Chakar is an executive sponsor for the Sustainability Employee Network (ESEN), the fastest-growing employee-sponsored group inside of State Street, with a mission to raise environmental awareness and promote effective sustainability practices. Notable accomplishments of ESEN over the last year have included an increase in onsite solar energy generation and the addition of new electric vehicle charging stations.
She is also a member of State Street's "Leading Women" group, which provides mentorship to senior women at the firm; and a member of State Street's taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets, part of a larger private-sector led initiative that seeks to meet the goals of the Paris accord through voluntary reductions in its member's carbon footprints.
Outside of work, Chakar is a member of the Institute of International Finance, where she has a seat on the digital finance steering committee. She is also on the board of trustees of Boston Medical Center.
