About Melissa Strait

Melissa Strait is an expert in compliance in fintech, having joined Coinbase as the Chief Compliance Officer in February 2021. At Coinbase, she oversees the entirety of the firm’s Compliance efforts, including anti-money laundering, sanctions, anti-bribery and corruption, trade surveillance, consumer compliance, and others. Previously, Melissa Strait served as Global Head of Financial Crimes for Stripe, Inc., overseeing all aspects of Stripe’s anti-money laundering, sanctions, and anti-bribery and corruption compliance programs. She also served as the Chief Compliance Officer of Stripe Payments Company, a licensed money transmitter. Prior to joining Stripe in early 2016, she was a Compliance Operations Manager for Square, Inc. At Square, she oversaw teams in San Francisco and St. Louis which handled transaction monitoring, KYC and EDD reviews, and sanctions screening. Prior to joining the fintech industry, Ms. Melissa Strait served as a director in the Due Diligence practice of Kroll, Inc. In that capacity, she managed teams producing in-depth due diligence research reports for banking and corporate clients, focused mainly in Asia and the Americas. Melissa Strait, Certified Anti-Money Laundering professional with 15 years of experience in payments, AML compliance, and global due diligence and investigations. Experience in managing large and small teams, as well as overseeing client accounts and projects. Superior communication skills, both written and verbal, and comfortable presenting and speaking in front of a variety of audiences. Specialties: Personnel, client, and project management; compliance and risk management; anti-money laundering Prior to joining Stripe in early 2016, Melissa Strait was a Compliance Operations Manager for Block (formerly known as Square). At these firms, Melissa led ground up builds of anti-financial crime programs tailored to their unique risks and characteristics. There, she managed teams producing in-depth due diligence research reports for banking and corporate clients, focused mainly in Asia and the Americas. She graduated from American University with degrees in International Studies and Spanish.