Kathleen Breitman is an American entrepreneur who is best known as the co-founder of Tezos, a decentralized blockchain platform. She is a prominent name in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space and is also the CEO of Dynamic Ledger Solutions.
Regarding leadership roles in the blockchain industry, women still hold only 6% of top positions. But Kathleen is already making waves in the male-dominated blockchain space. Born and raised in New York City, Kathleen has built a remarkable reputation with her contributions to the blockchain world.
Early Life
Kathleen Breitman was born in Connecticut, US, in 1990 and developed an early interest in philosophy, technology, and economic theory. She attended High school at Immaculate Heart Academy in New Jersey. In 2008, she moved to New York City where Kathleen attended Cornell University and pursued a degree in philosophy. She graduated in 2012 with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy. It was during her time at Cornell that she became interested in blockchain and cryptocurrency.
Career
Kathleen was the Vice President at R&M Political while she was at university. During this time, she edited The Politicizer, which was a sub of R&M. After that, she also worked at The Wall Street Journal for a three-month tenure.
After graduation in 2013, Kathleen joined Bridgewater Associates, one of the largest hedge funds in the world, as a management Associate where she worked for a few months. This experience exposed her to complex financial markets, investment strategies, and analytical processes used in hedge fund management. After that, Kathleen worked as a consultant at De Dicto for a year.
She then moved to the technology sector, working at Accenture as a senior associate. Accenture is a major consulting firm, and from there she learned technological consulting and got a broader view of digital transformation initiatives in different industries.
Following her time at Accenture, she held a role as the Senior Strategy Associate at R3, a popular financial technology company that focused on blockchain solutions for financial institutions. At R3, Kathleen closely examined the practical applications of blockchain technology in banking and finance. This influenced her future approach to developing Tezos.
Kathleen has also written many articles about blockchain technology as a means to spread blockchain knowledge, which she has published on Medium.
Founding Tezos
Kathleen Breitman co-founded Tezos (also known as Tezzie) in 2014 with her husband, Arthur Breitman, who is a former Morgan Stanley analyst and has a background in Computer Science. Tezos was introduced as a decentralized blockchain platform with a self-amending governance structure.
Tezos is designed to allow stakeholders to vote on upgrades directly, unlike other blockchain systems, which often face issues when attempting to make protocol changes or upgrades. This self-governance model decreases the risk of hard forks, a common issue that can divide communities and reduce platform stability.
Tezos works on a proof-of-stake mechanism, which is more energy efficient than the proof-of-work model used by Bitcoin and other early blockchains.
Initial Coin Offering And Launch
In 2017, Tezos had one of the most successful ICOs in blockchain history and raised approximately $232 million. The ICO was one of the largest funding events in history at the time, but there were some legal and financial controversies. A dispute arose between the Breitmans and the Tezos Foundation, the Swiss Foundation responsible for managing the funds raised during the ICO. The conflict resulted in some delays and legal complications and attracted a lot of media attention.
Despite these challenges, Kathleen and Arthur continued to develop Tezos, focusing on technical and community development. In 2018, Tezos officially launched its mainnet, which made it possible for users to start transacting on the Tezos blockchain. Since its launch, Tezos has attracted a dedicated user base and established itself as a competitor in the blockchain space.
To Conclude
Beyond Tezos, Kathleen is also interested in capital markets, finance, economics, and new ways to transact on the Internet. Apart from her work on Tezos, Kathleen is also an advocate for women in the technology industry and has spoken at many conferences and events on the topic. She has built a solid reputation as a leading figure in blockchain technology. Kathleen and Arthur Breitman currently reside in the United States, where they continue to support the Tezos project and work on its development.
