In this episode of The Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast, Marieke Flament, a former executive at Circle, Mettle by NatWest, and NEAR, takes us inside the fast-evolving world of stablecoins and how decentralized financial operations drives innovation throughout the financial sector. She shares how she first entered the crypto space, what reshaped her thinking around stablecoins, and how global collaboration is influencing the next phase of growth.

Marieke and Guy unpack the tension between traditional banking models and the emerging cryptocurrency landscape, highlighting why organizations need leaders with both a visionary mindset and the ability to dig into complex details.

As institutional interest accelerates and the demand for stablecoin expertise outpaces supply, they discuss how companies can build the right capabilities, which skills transfer from the broader crypto ecosystem, and what mindsets will define success in this next era.

Below is a full transcript of the episode, which has been lightly edited for clarity.

Welcome to The Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. Heidrick is the premier global provider of diversified solutions across senior-level executive search, leadership, assessment and development, team and organizational effectiveness, and culture shaping. Every day, we speak with leaders around the world about how they're meeting rising expectations and managing through volatile times, thinking about individual leaders, teams, organizations, and society. Thank you for joining the conversation.

Guy Shaul: Hi. I'm Guy Shaul, a partner in Heidrick & Struggles’ London office and a member of the technology practice, and I'm also the global lead for the Web3 and digital assets sector. Today, I'm delighted to be joined by Marieke Flament, a French-born computer engineer whose career has spanned continents and industries—from luxury at LVMH to strategy consulting at BCG to digital platforms. Marieke moved into the world of blockchain and crypto as the managing director for Europe at Circle, before becoming their global chief marketing officer. There, she pioneered the consumer application, launching multiple products and building a user base of over 2 million in less than two years. Since then, she has served as a fintech CEO, as well as the CEO of the NEAR Foundation. Our conversation today will focus on the omnipresent topic of stablecoins. It's one of the most closely watched themes in fintech right now, and it feels like we're at a highly formative juncture. We're going to discuss the opportunities, the challenges, and what that means for leadership in such a fast-evolving space. Marieke, thank you very much for taking the time to speak to us today. 

Marieke Flament: Thank you so much, Guy, really happy to be here and looking forward to the conversation. 

Guy Shaul: Marieke, let's start with your own journey. How did you first get involved with stablecoins? 

Marieke Flament: Well, actually, I first got involved with Circle, which, at the time, was not involved in stablecoins. I was working at Expedia for Hotels.com, and I got a call by a headhunter asking me if I was interested in a Bitcoin startup. So, you know, that's basically how I got in, which I would say is, it's part luck, it's part timing, but it's also part, you know, the faith of joining and jumping into an industry that was very unknown at the time. And Circle—we got into stablecoins at Circle toward the end of 2018–2019, so by then I had been almost four years at the company. And then I still remember when Jeremy Allaire and Sean Neville talked about launching stablecoins. Most of us in the company were like, Why would we do that? But, you know, in hindsight, obviously a wonderful idea. 

Guy Shaul: And so what originally got you into crypto, then?

Marieke Flament: What got me into crypto was, well, actually, so that headhunter called me, to whom I said first no, then called me back and said, “Please read the brief.” And I reluctantly read it, but I realized by reading it, then I thought, Oh, hang on, how come I've never heard of crypto and how come I've never heard of Bitcoin? And I started looking at it, and I felt like this was absolutely going to completely transform everything we knew, everything we thought about, and potentially make money move like the internet. And then I was hooked. So I basically fell into what very often is described as a rabbit hole, but I fell deep into that, and I just got very, very intrigued and could not stop thinking about it and wanted to be part of it. 

Guy Shaul: Yes, I love it. And so when Jeremy finished up sort of announcing the pivot to stablecoins, what was the journey from becoming a skeptic to a believer?

Marieke Flament: Well, so actually what's been very interesting through the Circle journey, I don't think I would even say it's people. It's more like, you know, we were so early into a journey of like make money move like the internet, but you don't know what it looks like from the beginning, right? Our first product was Circle Pay, and you could send and receive fiat currencies, but also Bitcoin and Ethereum, just with the email address of someone or their phone number. And then we moved, then we actually acquired an exchange, then we had an over-the-counter trading desk. Then we were actually building more and more different building blocks to get to that money vision of like let's move money, you know, on the internet, like the way you can send and receive a photo. So to me, it more looks like a continuation of everything and just like how do you actually realize that very big, bold vision? Which is something I really, truly admire from a company like Circle, which is it's always been about the same long-term vision. It's more like, how do you actually get to implement that?

Guy Shaul: Yes, some mechanism for getting that. Interesting. And so I mean that ties in to just thinking a little bit about what we're seeing in the market from a regulatory and governmental perspective in terms of the rails that are being provided to help us fulfil the potential of stablecoins. You've commented a lot on the difference between Europe's approach and the US. You've also been pretty vocal on, you know, what you think Europe needs to do to stay competitive. Tell us a bit about that. What do we need to be doing here in Europe to keep pace? 

Marieke Flament: Yes, we're living a Bretton Woods moment, but, you know, Bretton Woods was in the ’40s, and it was mostly bankers getting in a room and thinking through what the next new financial system needs to look like. What we're living now is actually people behind keyboards and influencing tremendously what the future of finance will look like. And through that, what I find fascinating is that every country is taking a different approach, and I think it's a first in history that major central banks are actually not aligned on the path to follow for this revolution. And what I mean by that is that, if you look at the US, it's a very clear fast-forward and all in on stablecoin. That's basically, you know, the GENIUS Act is pushing stablecoin, and that's the mechanism that is mostly used to continue actually the dominance of the dollar. 

If you look at the UK—in the UK, it's much more actually an approach toward tokenized deposits, so it's much more about banks, and that's where the focus is. Stablecoins are something that's not really fully fleshed out or discussed and might come in 2026. And if you look at Europe—in Europe, there's a lot of talk about the digital euro, which is both a retail and a wholesale central bank digital currency. There is no real talk about tokenized deposits, and there's actually players who are trying to do stablecoin. There is MiCA, which should help, but actually it's just a whole confusion, and what the central bank is sending as a message is different from the rest of the industry. And then if you look in Asia, I think the Chinese approach has been fascinating, which has been a lot of central bank digital currency, very centrally controlled, as you could expect from China, but equally now they are opening doors of stablecoins via Hong Kong. 

I mean point being, no two countries are following the same path, and we are still living in a world which needs global trade. So I'm just wondering, you know, what does that need to look like going forward? And I actually think there is a path if you think that, you know, you still need wholesale CBDC for intra-bank and central banks connections, tokenized deposits between bank and central bank make complete sense. And then stablecoin is almost the new fintech; it’s like the adoption layer that can actually continue spreading throughout. But no two countries are at the same level of thinking, and there is not yet that alignment internationally, which, granted, things are, you know, shaping differently in the world today, but I think it's still going to be needed. So very interesting to see how things continue evolving. 

Guy Shaul: And do you think we need that alignment in Europe to stop there being a market dominated by US-denominated stablecoins? 

Marieke Flament: Well, I think any country which doesn't take that seriously and doesn't have its own fiat stablecoin on the market, is basically saying we are OK not to exist on the international scene. Because the reality is, we need to think not just about what's happening today, and I hear a lot of people very often saying yes, but stablecoins are just using crypto. That's very not true, number one. But number two, if you fast-forward in the future, AI agents are going to use stablecoin rails. Any assets that's tokenized is going to use stablecoin rails. And if, when the time comes, there is no euro stablecoin, there is no fiat currency other than US dollar stablecoin, then everything is going to happen in US dollar stablecoin. So it is actually a matter of sovereignty to think through that and to have a very offensive strategy rather than a defensive strategy. Because at the moment, a lot of the conversations are more around: how do we protect, how do we stop this, you know, invasion of US dollar-based stablecoin? And what I often say is that actually you can't stop it, you know, it's open source. It's actually accessible on wallets, so anywhere you are, you can actually access it. So the only defense mechanism you have, if you still want your fiat currency to exist in tomorrow's world, is to go on offense and therefore to offer it and to have it, to play it forward. 

Guy Shaul: Yes. Yes, and what do you think is stopping regulators or central banks getting there, like what are the misconceptions or what's the perception of risk? 

Marieke Flament: I think there are misconceptions in terms of what is money and actually what the role of central bank is. I think there's also a fear that we are stepping into unknown, and we are actually stepping into a world where things are changing. If you look at, you know, the role and relationship of the central bank, for example, in the US between, you know, the government, executive, and then the central bank, that relationship is being shaken. I think if you are any central bank anywhere else in the world, you're looking at that and you're actually wondering what does that mean and, therefore, how do you keep control of that? 

But I actually think that keeping control of your monetary sovereignty might not necessarily mean keeping control of the entire stack of money. And there has always been, you know, when you can have the private sector do certain things, it's actually enabling you to go faster than having the public sector doing other things. So I think it's a bit of that. I hear a lot of confusion between CBDC tokenized deposits, stablecoins, and tokenization of assets. So it is still an industry that is very jargony, and so making the difference between all those things and actually thinking it through, you know, programmable money can take different shape and form, but everybody still has a role to play. And, therefore, articulating that in a simple way so that it can be understood not only by, you know, board members, but also by the teams that are under them and, therefore, be articulated in something that's actually quite pragmatic. 

Guy Shaul: Yes. And do you think that's the responsibility of people to learn or do you think there are people in the industry that have the responsibility to teach, or a bit of both? 

Marieke Flament: Oh, great question. Well, I think the world we’re—I'll answer with something broader, but I think the world we're in, it is an individual responsibility to constantly learn. And it's the same with AI, right? If you look at AI, today you cannot be in a boardroom or an exec or even in a company as an employee; you cannot be there and not want to learn about what's happening. And with the speed of changes that we're seeing, that's the same across many different verticals. And so I think here for, in particular, stablecoin, fiat money tokenization, you have to want to learn what's going on. It's also a good time obviously to ask experts to come in and to help, and it is also, I think, a duty of people in the industry to make that effort and to teach. 

One of the divide that we're seeing unfortunately, in particular when it relates to crypto, is that there is an antagonism between, you know, the crypto industry, very Web3, the agenda actually is against anything that's, you know, in the let's call it more traditional world. That's a problem, right? I've always been a very big believer and a supporter of bridging the two worlds, and I think the more we can have that bridging the two worlds, the better it is forward for everybody, because the crypto world still needs the traditional world, and the traditional world will need the crypto world going forward.

Guy Shaul: Yes, and that's a really nice segue into the topic that's very close to our heart, obviously around talent and leadership. But in the role we play in the market, we are seeing a huge interest in stablecoins and kind of finally starting to come meaningfully from the more institutional participants, that we've been sat here waiting to start being a more sort of, you know, meaningful actor from a search perspective, compared to the kind of crypto-native firms. But there's such a small talent pool of people who've actually got direct stablecoin experience, because interest in stablecoins has, to a certain degree, kind of exploded over the last, I don't know whether you want to call it 12 to 18 months. Do you have a view on how we, the industry, organizations, solve for that? 

Marieke Flament: I think it's a great question. But, you know, again, you probably see the same thing in things like quantum or AI. I imagine you have like a massive influx of demand for AI. And so I think, as with any emerging tech, when there is a bubble, because right now there is like so much hype that you could say you're actually still in the bubble, and there is not enough talent. And over time, you need to find the time to actually find people who have skills that can be translated, but also a mindset of growth mindsets, right? And I think there are many things, in particular tokenization of fiat currency, whether it's stablecoin tokenized deposits or actually central bank digital currency, someone who really understands payment rails very, very well and has the passion for wanting to understand the crypto world and what block chain means, that's already an amazing start to, you know, figure out, therefore, how to build stablecoins or what does it mean or where the rails are? Folks who have actually cross-border payment experience, that's also a skill that you can take from one industry to the other. 

So I think there are definitely pockets where you can find that talent. And, you know, I still remember, I mean if I say that's going to look like I had no clue, but it's very true. When I went from Expedia to Circle, I will say that I didn't fully understand the space, but I wanted to put myself in it. And I'm an engineer by background and I thought, OK, surely you can, you know, dismantle everything and figure out how things work, right? So it's more this growth mindset, I think, is very important. And even for myself, being in the industry for now over 10 years, there's not a day when I'm not learning something. I have to be completely like constantly switched on and figure out things and understand if something that is moving would be something major, or if it's not. So I think that's really the underlying trait that's more important, is that gross mindset and wanting to really learn constantly and not thinking that things are set in stone, because they are not, right, and they're constantly moving, so you need to be able to adapt to that. 

Guy Shaul: Yes, 100% agree with that. Are there parts of the broader crypto ecosystem that you think do translate well to stablecoins? Maybe don't translate well to stablecoin? I'm conscious it's a very broad ecosystem if you go like from protocol right up to the exchanges for tokens themselves. 

Marieke Flament: Well, I think there's parts that definitely translate. So it also depends, for example, if I could put myself in your shoes, depends the mandate you're on in which part of the stable current stack are you looking to find candidates for, right? Because sometimes it can be for infrastructure SaaS play, right? And therefore for infrastructure, SaaS play, people who've worked in protocols might be extremely relevant, but equally people who've worked in payment infrastructure might be equally very relevant. 

If it's actually payment rails, then you will have folks who worked in wallets who can be very relevant. But equally, you'll have also folks who've worked in like B to C, maybe start-ups or scale ups, who can be also very relevant. Because stablecoins, like it's very broad, right? You can be working on the core infrastructure, you could be with an issuer, you could be actually with someone who wants to be on an exchange. It could be about actually providing liquidity, and then, in which case, if it's about liquidity and market-making, then actually traditional banking expertise might be better and might actually be way more helpful than anything that is really like crypto or Web3. 

Guy Shaul: Yes.

Marieke Flament: So, yes, there's many different facets of that within the landscape. 

Guy Shaul: Yes, yes. And it's kind of interesting to try and figure out how the role an organization is playing in the ecosystem impacts what is needed from individuals. And I think one area that we've seen, sort of back to the earlier comment, more of is sort of larger institutions who stereotypically would be criticized maybe for not having the most aggressive growth mindsets, and certainly for whom there isn't going to be the depth of talent that understands this technology on any sort of level and, as we all know, a pretty high-risk appetite. What's your view on either experience or personality that should approach that problem? 

Marieke Flament: So I think, there, what is actually really important is also to understand, when you're in context like that, there's a part where you can't rock the boat, right? There's still a huge boat that needs to continue going, and therefore you need to think very strategically about what's the role of that very big ship today and what does it mean in the context wearing for tomorrow, right? Like, how much change is this technology going to require and how much is at stake for that institution? So what I find usually most helpful in those contexts is actually the ability to be very strategic, the ability to be also able to convey both at board-level, exec-level, but also to bring teams on with you on what is happening, and then the ability to make plans that are simple yet feasible. Because the challenge is in very large organizations, which often don't have yet the muscle for that, it can look like such a daunting scope that you make it too big, you make it not palatable. You don't know where to start, and therefore you do nothing, and therefore you're still stuck in the same place. 

So, you know, it's this cross-functionality, ability, capability, and there I think actually, you know, someone who's probably very well able to navigate within that big boat and able to call in the experts when they are needed and lean on that, might actually have more success than if you take someone directly from the crypto world and you put them in that large institution, right, which there might be catastrophe because it is actually an art and a skill to be able to navigate that. And to make change in a very large organization is a skill, right? It's something, yes, that you need to acknowledge. So that's what I've been thinking.

Then I've seen different models which also depends on like large organization, how they want to do that. But, for example, do you set an innovation team that is actually quite siloed and therefore, you know, they're little bit on their own and they can do their experiments and they can do things without really touching the core? Or do you actually bring something much more in and you embed it within the entire organization from the start? 

Both approaches have their merit and both have their drawbacks. If you have a team that's on the side, you can probably attract different talents and they can probably move fast and do things. The problem is that: is it really going to talk to the core at any point in time? That's a problem. And if you embed too much in the broader organization, then how fast can you really move? Now, the challenge with this tokenization wave of what we're seeing is that it, I think, it is almost impossible to not have something that's completely embedded into everything because it's not, you cannot just put it on the side. It will actually impact your deposits, it will impact your retail users, it will impact your wealth customers, it will actually have an impact on many different things. So you need to be able to cross-pollinate and cross-collaborate around the entire organization. 

Guy Shaul: Yes, and that's the challenge, because it feels like it's so wholesale and it feels like not in sort of a customer-segment perspective, but for an organization, it's such wholesale change, it's such deep infrastructure a lot of the time. And so like looking to the future, is there a bit of a call to arms that you would put out for, you know, our compatriots on this side of the Atlantic in terms of what we should be doing to develop the talent or to push the organizations or to push the governments or regulators to make sure we stay competitive here? Bretton Woods was a big moment.

Marieke Flament: Well, exactly. I would say that, I would say we are living a Bretton Woods moment, but this one feels intangible because it's not happening one moment in time and with a group of people gathering in a room. It is actually much more spread. There is less international collaboration around it, but I think we cannot mistake this moment. We have to be very active in it. And something I say very often is that we cannot play defense, we have to play offense. And it feels like a good way to say, “Well, there is something happening, we don't fully understand it, and we're not really sure, let's try to stop and block and put barriers.” But here in this specific context, you can't do that because of the very nature of stablecoins, because of the very nature of crypto wallets, it is actually open and it will actually continue, continue to spread. 

And so the call to arms is, I think, several-fold. One is: it's not too late, I hear that also a lot. It's just the beginning. And so it's time to do something now, to act, to be proactive and to play on offense, to think through this future money stack, like what's the role? The other thing I hear too much is that we put in opposition—it's either CBDC or tokenized deposit or stablecoins. I actually don't think it is either/or, I think it plays together, and I think there is a way to articulate that so that the central banks have a role, banks have a role, and the fintech of this world actually have a role. And that can be harmonious, but that can also interoperate globally, and that actually can mean that every country can keep its own financial sovereignty. 

And in terms of talent, I think because this is a very important moment, because payments and money are the underlying structure of any society, I think it is very important to have talent go into that headfirst. I hear still a lot of people saying, “But I don't fully understand it; it feels too new.” And I know it feels like that, but again I think you can still learn through it. I think it's still the beginning, and I actually think there is a lot of material that is out there, and a lot of resources to be able to grasp what's at play and to jump in, right? There's even very good courses. So when I hear people say, “How do I get into stablecoin?” Very often, I give two tips. One is get yourself on critical newsletters, and two, you might want to consider doing a course. That's fine. But three, actually it's three tips, I said two, but it's three tips. And three is get a wallet. Get a wallet, get some stablecoins, and start sending it and receiving it to understand the type of revolution that is happening. 

Guy Shaul: Love that. Thank you very much. 

Marieke Flament: Thank you.

Thanks for listening to The Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. To make sure you don't miss the next conversation, please subscribe to our channel on your preferred podcast app. And if you're listening via LinkedIn or YouTube, why not share this with your connections? Until next time. 

About the interviewer

Guy Shaul (gshaul@heidrick.com) is a member of the global Technology & Services Practice; he is based in the London office.