Richard Teng sits in an oak-colored conference room wearing a blue suit that, with his neatly-cropped salt-and-pepper, make him look every inch the banking regulator he used to be. The new CEO of Binance is friendly but cautious—a far cry from his predecessor, Changpeng Zhao, who last week agreed to step away from the company he founded as part of a $4 billion criminal settlement with the U.S. government.
While Teng's ascension to CEO has been in the works for months, the task ahead of him is enormous and would tax even the most seasoned senior executive. In the coming days, he must reinvent a corporate culture that has long been defined by Zhao—a charismatic outlaw, known universally as CZ, who delighted in trolling regulators and his critics with defiant social media posts. Meanwhile, Teng must also find a way to ensure that Binance, the world's biggest crypto exchange, can stay competitive as it navigates both a colossal financial sanction and a U.S. government monitor that will be embedded in its operations as part of the settlement.
