PNF Personnel Update

At PNF, everything we do is about accelerating the impact of this ecosystem and helping Pocket Network become Unstoppable by harnessing the power of our community. One of the most impactful things we can do in the short term is to build our team of leaders to amplify the community’s efforts and execute against our broader ecosystem strategy. With this in mind, we want to share some important personnel updates for both PNF and the protocol team.

Note: all salaries except the Senior Protocol Engineer, which is being paid by PNI, are being paid from the PNF treasury. Protocol recruitment fees are being paid from the $100k allocated in the ERA budget.

Dermot, PNF Director (Salary Adjustment)

Dermot has been a driving force behind keystone PNF projects such as wPOKT, Gateway-verse, v1 Economics R&D, and the Road to Revenue. He has also been crucial in developing our DNA, our ecosystem strategy, and working with new strategic partners. We were all perhaps a bit naive that he could deliver these part time (!) but he is now spending all of his hours to execute these programs to a very high standard. His salary will be adjusted to a full-time rate ($150k) to reflect his actual commitment. This will not retroactively apply to his work to date, it will be effective from July.

Adrienne, Head of Marketing (New Hire)

Adrienne has stepped in to close a critical gap and take ownership for delivering on our Ambition to build the best infrastructure brand in crypto. She receives the same salary as Dermot, Jack and Ben: $150k.

You can find her intro post here.

New Senior Protocol Engineer (New Hire)

Executing v1 to a high standard and shipping quickly requires the best talent we can find.

Olshansky has told us he wants to walk out of interviews with protocol devs thinking “fuck yeah”. We have worked with an agency to find a very experienced (and “fuck yeah”) protocol developer and have brought them onto the protocol team. PNF will pay the associated recruitment fee from the $100k allocated in the ERA budget.

New Protocol Technical Product Manager (Prospective Hire)

We are hiring a Technical Product Manager to sit within the protocol team and ensure quality and timely delivery of the v1 protocol upgrade. They will also be responsible for engaging with key stakeholders, including protocol developers, network actors, and PNF.

PNF will pay their salary, which is TBD pending final negotiations with our chosen candidate. Like the protocol engineer hire, the associated recruitment fee will come from the $100k allocated in the ERA budget.

New Head of Community (Prospective Hire)

As shared by Jack Laing separately, Ming, our much loved current Head of Community, is leaving us.

Given the importance of the Head of Community role, we have moved quickly to find someone with the right skills and experience to foster our community. They will be joining us full-time towards the end of the summer and spending some time in the interim getting to know the community and the work we’re doing at PNF. Their salary will be $125k in line with their experience.

Next steps

We will use this thread to make updates as more information and questions come to light about new personnel and their related costs.

Please feel free to reach out or comment if you have any incredible talent for the protocol team or any other capacity from which you think we could all benefit.

Thank you.

PNF

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Thank you for the update and transparency.

Do these salary adjustments also include the allotted POKT? I seem to remember in the order of ~500k POKT being an additional bonus on top of the salary for senior staff?

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Dermot’s salary adjustment does not include any change to his POKT allocation.

The new hires are receiving a POKT grant vesting over a 3 year period according to the standard method outlined in the original budget, which is to calculate the amount of the grant based on USD salary per annum x 3 x 15% / POKT price with POKT price being no lower than $0.06 (but higher if the market price is higher). This results in:

  1. Head of Marketing: 1.125M POKT vested over 3 years
  2. Head of Community: 937.5k POKT vested over 3 years
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Good day Jack!

Thanks for this update.

Just to confirm. Has this role been filled or it’s open for the community to apply?

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Yes, the Head of Community role has now been filled.

You will start to see him engage with the community on a part-time basis from next week ahead of a full-time role starting at the end of August.

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Awesome. It’s great to have him.

we keep building

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We are delighted to share that we successfully recruited a world-class Head of Product to serve as the Technical PM overseeing protocol development.

More on new hires in the protocol team below:

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