Referment is hiring an Institutional BD – DeFi Lending professional for a fast-growing platform bridging traditional finance and digital assets. This is a senior individual contributor role focused on originating institutional borrower relationships in the New York market during a pivotal growth phase.
This is a pure new business origination role—not retail sales, strategy, or advisory. The successful candidate will serve as the primary external face of the platform in the institutional community, attending industry events, meeting senior decision-makers, and building relationships with hedge funds, trading firms, asset managers, and family offices. The focus is on fewer, larger, more complex transactions with typical deal sizes ranging from $25m–$100m+.
What You’ll Do
- Originate new institutional borrower relationships across hedge funds, trading firms, prime brokerage, asset managers, banks, credit funds, and family offices
- Own the end-to-end business development process: sourcing, progressing conversations, structuring deals, and closing transactions
- Act as a senior relationship manager to borrowers post-close, maintaining and expanding partnerships
- Represent the platform at industry events, conferences, and in-market meetings throughout New York
- Collaborate with credit, capital markets, and leadership teams to feed real-time market insights into product and growth strategy
Requirements
Must-Haves:
- 5+ years of hands-on experience in institutional business development, relationship management, or capital markets origination (not management, strategy, or operations)
- Direct experience in institutional lending, credit, or structured finance such as securitization, corporate lending, or warehouse facilities
- Experience working in or with digital assets, blockchain finance, DeFi, or crypto-native institutions—essential to bridge TradFi and crypto
- Well-networked in the NYC institutional finance community with proven ability to originate and close large-ticket, low-volume transactions
- Comfortable engaging senior stakeholders, investment committee members, and C-suite counterparts
- Based in or very close to New York City; ability to attend events and meet prospective clients in person
Nice-to-Haves:
- Currently working at a crypto-native firm (exchange, lending platform, or DeFi protocol) in an institutional sales or BD capacity with prior traditional finance lending background
What They Offer
Compensation: Competitive base salary plus meaningful performance upside (OTE typically 50–100% range, depending on performance)
- Remote-first culture with optional access to a shared New York office space
- No mandated in-office days; autonomy and trust are core to the culture
- High-impact role during a critical growth phase of an institutional fintech platform
How to Apply
When applying, mention the word CANDYSHOP to show you read the job post completely.
