TL;DR:
- Stellar Development Foundation created a Market Development team with regional leads in Latin America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and APAC.
- This strategy aims to accelerate local institutional adoption by connecting banks, fintechs, and asset issuers to the network’s rails.
- Each region has a lead with specific expertise in payments, digital assets, or local financial regulation.
The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) announced the formation of a global Market Development team aimed at deepening institutional adoption of the network in the regions it considers will define its next phase of growth.
Chief Executive Officer José Fernández da Ponte explained in a statement that the institutions the foundation seeks to bring on board —banks, payment processors, asset issuers, fintechs, and remittance providers— make their integration decisions at a local level, which means a global strategy is not enough to earn their trust.
The logic behind the regional approach rests on the fact that the most relevant cross-border payment rails connect specific countries, and the instant payment systems Stellar integrates with —SPEI in Mexico, PIX in Brazil, and SEPA in Europe— operate under local regulators with their own rules. The team was designed to move at the speed of those institutions and with the on-the-ground knowledge that demands.
The Faces Representing Stellar in Each Region
For Latin America, Stellar appointed Federico Gómez Schumacher as Senior Director. He brings over 20 years in digital payments and prior experience as VP for the region at PayPal. Brazil, given the scale of its fintech market and PIX penetration, received its own lead: Cláudia Antunes, who joined in March 2026 and brings more than 17 years in traditional finance and experience in tokenization.
In Europe, Juan López Carretero will lead the expansion under the MiCA regulatory framework. He joined from BBVA, where he drove partnerships across the globe and evaluated the bank’s fintech investments. For Africa, Kwame Oppong takes on the role of Senior Advisor. He served as Director of FinTech and Innovation at the Bank of Ghana and led the eCedi pilot. In the Middle East, Faraj Abutalibov will operate from Dubai, bringing nearly two decades of experience in blockchain and institutional capital. Finally, Betty Sun-Lucas leads the APAC region from Singapore, with fifteen years across fintechs, policy, and investment in Southeast Asia.
The SDF designed this strategy targeting asset managers already issuing tokenized funds on public networks. It also addresses the consolidation of stablecoins as primary financial infrastructure. Institutions are no longer asking whether they should enter blockchain —the question now is which network to operate on. The regional team aims to be Stellar’s answer in each market.
