Dante Disparte

Born in Puerto Rico,^[8] Dante Disparte graduated from Goucher College with a B.A. in international and intercultural studies, and from NYU Stern with an MSc in risk management. He also graduated from Harvard Business School.^[9]  

In 2013 he joined the American Security Project, a think tank founded by John Kerry and Chuck Hagel.^[10] He became chairman of the group's Business Council for American Security.^[8] He was a member of FEMA's National Advisory Council,^[11] before the entirety of the council was dismissed in early 2025 by the Trump administration.^[12]

Early in his career he founded Risk Cooperative, becoming chairman.^[11] In 2016, he co-authored Global Risk Agility and Decision Making: Organizational Resilience in the Era of Man-Made Risk, which was published through Palgrave Macmillan.^[2] Bloomberg in 2018 called him a "grid resiliency and security expert." Power Ledger, a blockchain technology company, hired him in May 2018 to lead its efforts to restore the power grid in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria.^[1]  

Dante was involved in the Libra Association, a blockchain group supported by Facebook.^[13] Weeks before the project's public announcement in June 2019, he was named the Libra Association's head of policy and communications.^[5] After the announcement, the Libra Association's proposed stablecoin faced a "beating from politicians"^[14] on issues such as potentially undermining local currencies.^[13] The backlash led to a ban in Europe,^[14] and in early October 2019, PayPal, one of 28 founding members, dropped from the association, followed by others such as eBay and Visa. After the exodus, on October 14, 2019, Disparte was elected deputy chairperson of the Libra Council, which governs the association.^[5]

While retaining his role as head of policy and communications,^[14] he was also named an executive vice president.^[6] Under Disparte, the association began redesigning the digital coin to "appease skeptical regulators."^[13]

After being renamed the Diem Association,^[6] the project was ready to test its Diem stablecoin in the spring of 2021, and on the brink of approval from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma). However, the final approval needed by the US Treasury was refused, with the Biden administration requesting a delay to examine the project further. Writes The Financial Times, Disparte "quit in frustration," and the Diem project was cancelled in January 2022.^[15]

In April 2021, he was hired as chief strategy officer and head of global policy at Circle Internet Group, a stablecoin company.^[4][3]