Head of Capital Markets, SHx

About the role

Stronghold's mission is to provide fast, secure, and accessible financial services for all. Through our developer APIs, we enable pay-by-bank embedded payments and financial services while pushing the boundaries of financial innovation. Our SHx token is a key component of our ecosystem, supporting merchant rewards, DeFi-based financing, and governance.

We're a fast-moving, data-driven team committed to compliance, scalability, and innovation. We value curiosity, autonomy, and creative problem solving and we're looking for someone excited to bring a marketing edge.

The role

You'll build toward owning the SHx Markets vertical: expanding SHx market infrastructure and liquidity to strengthen the utility and health of the SHx ecosystem. That means managing and growing relationships across crypto-native and traditional institutional participants (market makers, brokers, exchanges, OTC desks, custodians, and prime brokers) and working closely with the SHx Markets team on strategy and execution. You'll bring a deep understanding of market structure, clearing, settlement, prime brokerage, and custody, and apply it to a market that's still being built.

How ownership works here: you take on our external market maker relationships from the start. The rest of the markets portfolio (exchange relationships, institutional partnerships) transfers to you as you deliver, not by title on day one. We're explicit about this because it's how we work: results earn scope.

This is an entrepreneurial seat on a distributed team, not a chair at an established desk. We're looking for someone who is both strategic and execution-oriented, with the network and reputation to open doors and the judgement to know which ones matter.

What You'll Do

• Manage relationships with market makers, brokers, exchanges, liquidators, and institutional market participants globally.
• Own key traditional-market relationships: OTC trading desks, quantitative market makers, custodians, and prime brokers.
• Guide company strategy for enterprise-grade infrastructure and solutions that attract and broaden the SHx markets ecosystem.
• Explore new ways to partner with existing market participants to accelerate SHx liquidity growth.
• Help develop crypto and traditional market infrastructure for SHx (listings, market-making programs, settlement).
• Bring product ideas that expand the utility of the SHx token, and work with product to take the best ones to market.
• Partner with product, engineering, business development, and leadership to construct the market buildout strategy.
• Collaborate with compliance, legal, and finance to ensure efficient and compliant execution.

In the first 6 to 12 months, you are the person who

• Owns our external market maker relationships.
• Has earned a growing share of the wider portfolio (exchange listings, OTC desks, custodians, prime brokers) on results.
• Has taken at least one exchange listing or market making partnership from first conversation to live.

Additional information

The technical side of the market (data, reconciliation, on-chain infrastructure) stays with our technical team. You own the business of the market.

What We're Looking for

• 10+ years of markets experience, with a focus on FX or commodities.
• 5+ years of management experience.
• 5+ years of business development and/or strategic partnership building.
• An experienced negotiator who is energized by partnerships and deal-making.
• Deep understanding of market structure and the liquidity landscape; familiarity with the crypto liquidity ecosystem.
• Both strategic and execution-oriented; works cross-functionally with internal stakeholders.
• Outstanding verbal and written communication; serious attention to detail.
• Conviction about where market infrastructure is headed, and why SHx belongs there.

How We Hire

Four conversations: our recruiter, then each founder one on one (our CTO on market structure and liquidity, our CEO on strategy and how you'd build the vertical), then a final round with both.

Location and Logistics

• San Francisco (hybrid; in office Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday).
• US work authorization required; no visa sponsorship.
• Reports to the CEO.
• Full-time, senior leadership.

Perks & Benefits

• Health benefits, a seat shaping crypto market infrastructure from the ground up, and a team that values speed, curiosity, and autonomy.
• Authorized to work in the United States (required)
• No visa sponsorship available at this time