Marieke Flament, the CEO of the NEAR Foundation, has announced her departure from the role after serving for two years at the helm of the organization responsible for the NEAR protocol. A blog post published on Thursday revealed that Chris Donovan, the foundation’s general counsel, will succeed her as CEO. Flament will continue to support Donovan as a strategic adviser until the end of the year and will transition to a council board role within the foundation.
Reflecting on her tenure, Flament highlighted the significant growth of the NEAR ecosystem, stating, “When I joined two years ago, NEAR had around 50,000 users, and now we have over 2.5 million daily active users.” She expressed confidence in Donovan’s ability to lead in the current regulatory landscape, noting, “We are not the only ecosystem making a move like that.”
Currently, the NEAR protocol ranks 34th in terms of Total Value Locked (TVL), a key metric measuring the capital locked within a blockchain ecosystem, according to data sourced from DefiLlama.