Farzam Ehsani

Farzam Ehsani was born in the United States to Iranian parents who had fled religious persecution against the Baha'i people during the 1970s. Raised as a Baha'i with a worldview centred on the fundamental oneness of humanity, he spent his primary and high school years in Nairobi, Kenya, before returning to the United States to study Economics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Ehsani began his career at Deloitte Consulting in San Francisco before moving into consulting roles at McKinsey & Company in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 2012, he joined Rand Merchant Bank as Blockchain Lead, where he built prototypes and presented findings on cryptocurrency developments to regulators, academic institutions and global conferences, later becoming inaugural Chairperson of the South African Financial Blockchain Consortium.

In 2018, Ehsani left the bank to co-found VALR, taking the courage-driven name directly from the company's founding values. VALR grew into Africa's largest independent cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, serving over 750,000 users worldwide and raising the largest crypto funding round in African history — $50 million in 2022 from investors including Pantera Capital and Coinbase Ventures. In April 2024, VALR became among the first companies licensed by South Africa's Financial Sector Conduct Authority as a regulated crypto asset service provider.