real world stories: bridging the gap between canary wharf and the blockchain.

For fifteen years, Ehsan Masud’s life was measured by the steady rhythm of London’s Canary Wharf. A CIMA-qualified accountant navigating the marble-lined corridors of Morgan Stanley, Barclays and HSBC, he operated in a “suited and booted” world - where risk was calculated to four decimal places and career paths were linear.

Then came the silence of 2020. In lockdown, watching the world shift through a screen, Masud saw something that led him to leave the safety of institutional banking for the “Wild West” of digital assets.

“I saw the fintech boom firsthand… companies were forced into digital transformation,” Masud recalls. “It was a leap of faith. I wanted to get out of that highly regulated, highly structured environment. I wanted something more dynamic.”

Today, Masud is a Chief Financial Officer at the forefront of the digital asset revolution in the UAE, a region he describes as the new “global fintech hub”. In a wide-ranging conversation with Randstad’s Konstantinos Parisopoulos, created exclusively for Randstad’s finance and accounting community, Masud outlines a blueprint for the modern finance leader: one who must act not only as a guardian of the balance sheet, but as an architect of the future.

Randstad (R): You spent 15 years at the highest levels of traditional banking, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, HSBC. That’s a very safe, structured environment. What was the specific trigger that made you leave it for the volatility of digital assets?

Ehsan Masud (EM): It was the pandemic. Sitting at home and watching the world change through a screen, I realised companies were being pushed into digital transformation overnight. I saw the fintech explosion firsthand, and honestly, I wanted to get out of that highly regulated, “suited and booted” environment. I wanted something more dynamic. Leaving a linear career path for a sector many still viewed with scepticism was a leap of faith, but I could see the financial infrastructure was fundamentally shifting.

R: Crypto is often described as the “Wild West”. Did you find you had to unlearn your institutional habits, or were they actually your greatest asset?

EM: It’s actually the opposite. You need those habits more than ever. In this space, you often have to be the “adult in the room”. If you come from post-2008 banking or post-Brexit regulatory controls, you bring a level of discipline that startups desperately need.

Take stablecoins, for example. To the average user, they look like digital dollars. But as a CFO, I have to apply an institutional risk framework. I need to assess redemption mechanics, reserve quality and counterparty risk. You can use traditional finance tools, but the application has to be far more robust because the safety nets aren’t the same as in traditional banking.

R: Let’s talk about the technical side. For controllers and accountants reading this, crypto standards are still evolving. How do you manage the books when the rules aren’t fully written yet?

EM: The standards have struggled to keep pace, but the tools are there if you know where to look. You need to focus on regulatory intent, mitigating risk and presenting a true and fair view of the business.

• There are three standards I rely on heavily:
  IFRS 15 is critical for revenue recognition, particularly to avoid front-loading revenue, a common trap in technology projects.
• IAS 1 is essential for liquidity disclosures, especially when holding a mix of fiat, crypto and commodities such as gold.
• And IAS 2 is particularly valuable for startups, as it allows infrastructure costs to be capitalised during the build phase, preventing significant losses from appearing in the P&L during the early years.

R: You’ve said traditional Treasury is becoming outdated. What’s the reality of moving money on blockchain compared to the SWIFT system?

EM: It’s the difference between sending a letter and sending an email. In the traditional system, a cross-border payment can take three to five days to settle, pass through multiple correspondent banks, and incur substantial fees.

On the blockchain, I can move that same value instantly, securely and with complete transparency at minimal cost. We’re seeing this shift from speculative use to real infrastructure. For example, the UAE Ministry of Finance recently executed a government transaction using a digital dirham. That’s the future of the Treasury: instant settlement without compromising trust.

R: You’re now based in the UAE. Why did you choose that region over London or New York?

EM: The UAE has created an exceptional fintech “sandbox”. In the West, relationships with regulators can be formal, distant and sometimes adversarial. Here, regulators in ADGM or DIFC might call you by your first name.

It’s not about avoiding regulation, it’s about dialogue. They encourage innovation while still demanding strong institutional controls. That clarity enables scale and attracts institutional capital because investors know governance is in place.

R: You’ve recently distinguished between FP&A and what you call “BP&A”. What’s the difference?

EM: I think FP&A is becoming outdated. It often just tells you whether you’re on plan or off plan, that’s historical reporting.

BP&A - Business Performance & Analysis - explains why you’re off plan and, more importantly, what to do about it. It shifts Finance from a cost centre to a performance enabler. We shouldn’t just be box-tickers or scorekeepers. We need to be strategic partners working with operations and marketing to drive the business forward.

R: Finally, what advice would you give a Finance Director aiming to become a CFO in this new economy by 2030?

EM: The era of the “scorekeeper” CFO is over. If you want to lead in the future, you can’t just be the person who says “no” or reports what happened last month. The future belongs to the Architects.

Don’t fear the automation of transactional work, embrace it. Let AI handle data entry and reconciliations. That shift is your greatest opportunity because it frees you to focus on what we were meant to do: strategic design.

Stop seeing yourself as a support function and start seeing yourself as a co-pilot. Engineers build the engine, sales press the accelerator, but we design the dashboard and navigation system. We make sure the car doesn’t crash at 200 mph.

You need to be the bridge, the translator, between the chaotic brilliance of innovation and the rigid necessity of regulation. It’s an incredibly exciting place to be. Master the fundamentals, be a great accountant first then use that foundation to build something resilient. Don’t just measure value; create the framework that allows value to exist. That’s the difference between a manager and a leader.