Maecenas is a company whose effective teamwork is based on years of collaboration. What many people might not know, however, is that our CTO Federico Cardoso first started to work together with CEO Marcelo Garcia over two decades ago.
Fitting for the kind of groundbreaking results they have eventually gone on to achieve at Maecenas, the two originally met over what was (at the time) an innovative platform. Long before we all became accustomed to communicating seamlessly across the Internet, Federico and Marcelo found each other through the pioneering Bulletin Board System in the mid-1990s. Based in Argentina and using a telephone line connecting computers, they shared files and went on to set up their own bulletin board together. These strong roots -- based in innovation and technology, as well as a longstanding professional understanding of Marcelo's ambitions for the company have been key to helping Federico keep Maecenas on the cutting edge.
Years after they first met, Federico, who is based in Argentina, was working at one of the country's top telecommunications companies. As a systems administrator for Linux servers, he was managing a video streaming platform, long before anybody had even heard the word "Netflix". It was then that Marcelo, who had since moved to London, reached out and reconnected with Federico to fire up his passion for cryptocurrencies. Together they became convinced that financial technology could develop more efficient markets with this brand-new way of transferring and exchanging value. From there, was born a company they helped found five year ago DXMarkets, a cryptoasset exchange.
This was a side project for Federico initially, as he maintained the systems and security for the exchange platform while continuing to work at the telecommunications company. But as he became more deeply involved, he helped a pivot to more directly focus on blockchain and jumped to work full-time with Marcelo. DXMarkets entered a Swiss startup accelerator program Fintech Fusion and emerged with the idea of Maecenas and using cryptoassets to democratise access to the fine art investment world. The rest, as they say is history.
Nowadays, Federico oversees all the aspects of Maecenas' technology and is responsible for the tech team's work. He leads the key strategic decisions for the company's technology and guides the team to implement partnership integrations, deploys the security measures for services and makes the platform accessible even for non-technical users.
Federico says his biggest challenge is keeping up-to-date with the fast-evolving crypto and blockchain space, especially to ensure a safe environment for Maecenas customers such as for the custody of coins even as he delivers on the company roadmap.
"This is what makes the work so exciting. We cannot follow a blueprint from another company because we are first movers.
The fact that we are creating something new means we have to plan really well and avoid any improvisation because we need to be crystal clear on what the next steps in our technical path are."
The hard work is well worth it, though. Federico is confident he and his team are working to scale out the platform in line with the company's projected growth. "I fully expect us to execute our plan and have a lot of fine art on the blockchain. Maecenas is set to be a successful company and in all probability will become a huge marketplace."
If all the responsibility on the CTO's shoulders seems daunting, Federico has a perfect antidote to any stress. In his free time, Federico plays guitar and has even toured with his psychedelic trance band, Mindprobe, in Argentina and abroad. "Playing guitar is grounding for me. If tension builds up, I can just pick up my guitar and am forced to concentrate on what I am playing. That usually means I go back to work and find I can resolve whatever problem I was working on."
We certainly think Federico rocks and are delighted our technology future is in such assured -- and gifted -- hands.
Topics: Company updates