Binance has announced a change at the top of its finance team, with chief financial officer Kaiser Ng leaving the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange just over a week after it suffered a record $6.3 billion hack.

The exchange said on Saturday, 7 November, that Ng would be succeeded by Justin Yek, a former vice-president of finance at payments company Airwallex. Binance co-chief executive Yi He said Ng had decided to pursue a new venture after more than five years at the company, and that a transition plan had been implemented over the past half year.

Ng has been Binance's chief financial officer since January 2022. Before joining Binance, he held the same role at rival exchange Kraken for about five years, according to his LinkedIn profile. Neither Binance's statement, as reported, named his next venture nor gave an exact date for the handover.

The timing has drawn close attention because the announcement came nine days after the 29 October attack, in which hackers took about $6.3 billion from Binance across multiple blockchains. Cointelegraph described it as the largest cryptocurrency theft on record, and Binance said it would absorb the losses rather than pass them on to customers.

The attack has been attributed by the FBI and several researchers to North Korean hackers, a charge that North Korea has denied. The attribution, and the scale of the loss, have put Binance's security, reserves and leadership under renewed scrutiny at a time when regulators in several countries are already examining large crypto exchanges closely.

Binance has presented the finance change as long-planned rather than a response to the breach. The six-month transition plan described by Yi He predates the October attack, and the company has not linked Ng's departure to the hack in its reported statement. That framing matters for investors and users trying to judge whether the move signals deeper problems or simply the end of a planned handover.

Yek arrives from Airwallex, where he was most recently vice-president of finance. He takes over at a difficult moment: Binance must complete its recovery from the theft, rebuild affected infrastructure, satisfy regulators and reassure customers that their funds are safe. The company has said it is carrying out reserve replenishment, infrastructure rebuilding and an independent cybersecurity review, although the full results of that work have not yet been published.

For now, the exchange has given no further detail about Yek's start date or the precise scope of his role. Traders and customers will be watching for any further statement from Binance, and for signs that the new finance chief brings a steadier hand to the company's finances as it works through the aftermath of the largest crypto theft on record.