Swen Werner, State Street’s global head of digital custody and payments, is leaving the bank, he said in a LinkedIn post Tuesday.
Werner is at least the second State Street Digital executive to depart this year. Nadine Chakar, the CEO of the bank’s digital unit since its launch in 2021, left State Street in January to become CEO of the crypto infrastructure firm Securrency.
State Street confirmed Werner’s departure Wednesday to Bloomberg, adding that a replacement would be announced in due course. Werner did not respond to a request for comment from the wire service.
In his LinkedIn post, Werner did not indicate what his next step would be, but he said his State Street role — which included serving as head of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific for the digital unit — allowed him “to pursue what started as a curiosity about digital assets and blockchain into a true obsession.”
“But before I can immerse myself even deeper in this industry, I need to deal with a few personal matters such as visiting my mother's grave who passed away not too long ago,” Werner said. “Sometimes the want for a little time off turns into a need for a bigger change.”
Werner joined State Street in 2015 as a managing director and moved into digital assets in 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also worked for JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank over a career spanning two dozen years.
