It is no shock that there is a common pivot from blockchain to synthetic intelligence proper now.
Each week brings one other report of an organization or particular person both leaving the cryptocurrency trade completely or including synthetic intelligence to their portfolios. Bitcoin miners are transferring away from mining to more and more give attention to AI infrastructure and enterprise capital companies are funding AI companies quite than crypto corporations.
Nevertheless it’s uncommon when the main members of the identical staff depart one firm and soar into one other simply down the highway. That is precisely what seems to have occurred to the senior advertising staff at crypto change Coinbase (COIN), which, over the course of a 12 months or so, has landed at San Francisco-based OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. Coinbase maintains a 150,000-square-foot workplace within the metropolis.
It is price noting that Coinbase employs a lot of advertising employees and 6 — albeit fairly senior roles — make up solely a small portion of the whole staff.
The advertising expertise migration started with Sarah Russell, who joined OpenAI as VP, built-in advertising and ops in November 2024. She had spent one 12 months and three months because the senior director of built-in advertising at Coinbase, a place she left in January 2023. It is price noting that earlier in her profession, she labored at Fb’s (now Meta) Menlo Park headquarters.
A month later, Kate Rouch turned OpenAI’s chief advertising officer. Instantly previous to that, she spent three and a half years in the identical function at Coinbase. Earlier than that, she spent over 11 years as world head of brand name and product advertising at Meta.
Rouch was adopted by Elke Karstens, who joined OpenAI as head of worldwide advertising in March 2025, although she did not transfer straight. Karstens spent three months at a London-based paytech startup referred to as Finom. Karstens additionally spent over 10 years at Meta in varied advertising roles.
The next September noticed one other two transitions: Kaitlin Gianetti turned head of built-in advertising administration at OpenAI a month after leaving Coinbase, and Amy (Good) Robbins joined as model insights lead straight after leaving Coinbase. Gianetti had spent simply over 4 years as director of built-in advertising at Coinbase. Previous to that, she additionally labored as a model advertising govt at Meta. Robbins spent three and a half years as senior supervisor of insights at Coinbase.
Most just lately, Nina Mogavero joined OpenAI in December 2025 to work in advertising technique and operations, a month after leaving Coinbase the place she’d spent three years in advertising and technique.
An individual conversant in the state of affairs mentioned the exodus was no coincidence. The particular person described Rouch because the “nexus,” in relation to engaging former Coinbase colleagues to maneuver over to OpenAI.
“To be truthful, she employed numerous them or introduced them from Fb,” they mentioned. Kate Rouch didn’t reply to a request for remark.
A Coinbase spokesperson brushed away the departures. “The advertising staff at Coinbase is over 150 individuals and whereas some of us have left to affix OpenAI final 12 months, and we want them the very best, characterizing this as something apart from regular individuals strikes can be incorrect,” the spokesperson mentioned through e-mail.
OpenAI didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Advertising is not the one division that is seen AI as extra enticing than crypto. Earlier this month, Tom Duff Gordon, the previous VP of worldwide coverage at Coinbase, left to grow to be OpenAI’s head of EMEA Coverage.
Different Coinbase alumni who’ve headed to OpenAI embrace
- Yi X, who joined the AI agency as product supervisor in April 2025
- The pinnacle of design at decentralized buying and selling platform Base, Alexandra Fitzroy, left Coinbase in October 2025 after simply over 5 years
- Abe Sprague left Coinbase in September 2024 to grow to be a member of OpenAI’s information science staff.
OpenAI isn’t the one machine studying store to win over Coinbase advertising expertise. Earlier this month, Sarah Wolf, the advertising lead behind Coinbase’s Base layer-2 community, left after almost 5 years on the change to move startup advertising at AI lab Anthropic.
