Stani Kulechov is the founder and CEO of Aave Companies. He is a recognized pioneer in decentralized finance, web3 social and blockchain technologies. An avid software programmer in his youth, he was driven by a passion to expand access to financial tools. While studying law and smart contracts, he built the Aave Protocol – an open-source, non-custodial liquidity protocol. With ~ $7B in total value locked, Aave is now one of the world’s largest and most successful decentralized markets. Under Stani’s leadership, the Company has continued to spearhead innovation in DeFi, including state-of-the-art upgrades to the protocol, and building the Aave-native, overcollateralized stablecoin GHO.

As a problem solver with a deep understanding of blockchain technologies, Stani has built additional solutions that address the imbalance of power, control and monetization that social media platforms enjoy today. Believing that social connection is important, he drove creation of the Lens Protocol, the social layer for web3 that is based on the principle of user ownership, control and portability. Lens offers a host of modular, blockchain-enabled features and scaling solutions that can be integrated into any web application. Stani resides in London, where the Company is based.