It is no shock that there is a normal pivot from blockchain to synthetic intelligence proper now.
Each week brings one other report of an organization or particular person both leaving the cryptocurrency business 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 somewhat than crypto corporations.
Nevertheless it’s uncommon when the main members of the identical group depart one firm and bounce into one other simply down the highway. That is precisely what seems to have occurred to the senior advertising group at crypto alternate Coinbase (COIN), which, over the course of a yr 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 numerous advertising workers and 6 — albeit fairly senior roles — make up solely a small portion of all the group.
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 yr 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 grew to become OpenAI’s chief advertising officer. Straight previous to that, she spent three and a half years in the identical position at Coinbase. Earlier than that, she spent over 11 years as world head of 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 numerous advertising roles.
The next September noticed one other two transitions: Kaitlin Gianetti grew to become 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 not too long ago, 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 scenario stated the exodus was no coincidence. The particular person described Rouch because the “nexus,” with regards to engaging former Coinbase colleagues to maneuver over to OpenAI.
“To be truthful, she employed a variety of them or introduced them from Fb,” they stated. Kate Rouch didn’t reply to a request for remark.
A Coinbase spokesperson brushed away the departures. “The advertising group at Coinbase is over 150 folks and whereas some people have left to hitch OpenAI final yr, and we want them the very best, characterizing this as something apart from regular folks strikes could be incorrect,” the spokesperson stated by way of 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 top 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 group.
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 practically 5 years on the alternate to move startup advertising at AI lab Anthropic.