Temitope Lawal

Temitope Lawal has 8 years of hands-on experience practicing law in Nigeria and the State of New York, focusing on the areas of emerging technology, decentralized finance, cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, data privacy, cybersecurity, and consumer finance. In addition to his law degrees from Nigeria, he possesses an L.L.M degree from the Pace University School of Law in New York.

He was Director & Associate General Counsel with a growth technology company driving inclusion with FinTech, and E-commerce product verticals. As Director & Associate General Counsel, Product, Regulatory, & Compliance, he led the product and regulatory legal team and owned the strategic legal determinations and advice provided on legal and regulatory requirements throughout the product life cycle. Product offerings at the company cut across various aspect of the financial technology, blockchain and decentralized finance industries.

He had also been Senior Counsel Vice President within the digital banking group at Citi where he also provided legal guidance regarding digital and technology solutions for the consumer business units, including cards, money movement, digital assets, crypto, retail banking and wealth management.

In addition to his industry experience, Temitope brings a wealth of experience as a regulator to bear when assisting clients with navigating their regulatory obligations, having worked as a Senior Attorney with the Research & innovation Division (RID) of the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS).  The RID administers DFS’s issuance of “BitLicenses” and limited purpose trust charters to cryptocurrency exchanges, crypto-custody providers and other entities engaged in virtual currency business activities in New York State.