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Henry Ford said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said ‘faster horses.'”
Annelise Osborne uses this quote in her new book, “From Hoods to Suits: Innovating Digital Assets for Traditional Finance.”
The Westport-based writer and fintech executive isn’t referring to the Model T, but to blockchain.
But a century later, the concept is the same: Most people have no idea how to innovate or what new ideas mean for their lives.
They better pay attention. Otherwise, they will get hit by a car or concept they don’t understand.
Osborne took a circuitous route to her blockchain book, published last week by Wiley. She grew up in the Marshall Islands (where her father worked in rocketry). After William & Mary and Columbia Business School, she began her career in New York.
He has worked in financial services (including as a senior vice president at Moody’s, where he managed the commercial mortgage-backed securities oversight team, responsible for monitoring ratings on $400 billion in bonds), and has served on numerous corporate boards .
Since April, Osborne has been the chief business officer of Kadena, a blockchain company.
After COVID, she moved to Westport. Like the Marshall Islands, it’s on the water. There are excellent schools for her 3 teenage boys (and, she says happily, a public golf course).
She is involved in Homes with Hope, rescue dogs and Startup Westport. The city’s group of public/private tech entrepreneurs is a perfect fit.
Osborne has gotten to know many of Westport’s most creative minds (many of whom are women). In turn, they are interested in what you know about blockchain.
A way to visualize the blockchain. Annelise Osborne offers another way, with words.
Explaining how and why finance is becoming interconnected is the goal of his new book. Blockchain, he says, is a $2.6 trillion market “created by (people wearing) hoodies. But (people in suits) need to understand how and why it matters.”
Blockchain can save investment firms such as Templeton, JP Morgan and KKR huge sums, Osborne says, through operational efficiencies. In fact, they already have.
And with baby boomers passing trillions of dollars in assets (mostly) to Gen Z, many of whom are getting their investment insights from “finfluencers” who understand blockchain technology and seek out non-traditional types of companies to invest in, it behooves those in suits to understand what the “hooded” are doing and thinking.
Osborne notes that the lines between the two groups are blurring. When Mark Zuckerberg recently testified before Congress, he abandoned his signature look for a more conservative one.
Osborne calls his book “a Michael Lewis-style read.” It’s full of stories that even people who struggle with blockchain can understand.
Annelise Osborne (holding a book), with (from left) Doug Bross, Zac Mathias and Marion Jones, at this month’s launch party at Mexicue.
Being Westport, a town with many suits and a growing number of hoodies, Osborne thanks several locals in his book. These include Keith Styrcula, founder and CEO of Glasstower Digital; investment manager Ilka Gregory; Gregg Bell, senior vice president of the HBAR Foundation, and Patrick O’Kain, a partner at RW3 Ventures.
The book created a bit of a stir. It sold 75 copies in 10 minutes at a cryptocurrency conference in Austin. It sold out on Amazon and topped the charts in a couple of new release categories.
Osborne now sets off on a promotional tour of his book in financial capitals around the world.
What’s in store for the future? He is also keeping an eye on other efficiencies in finance, including “programmable money.” Bonds can pay interest on their own; Beware of automated margin calls.
You heard it here for the first time, from Annelise Osborne, a financial whiz from Westport who wears neither a hoodie nor a suit.