Polygon Labs names new CEO after Foundation previously ditched that role

Polygon Labs has promoted its chief legal officer Marc Boiron to chief executive officer in a newly created role.

Boiron's promotion comes almost a year after he joined Polygon Labs last August from dYdX, a DeFi protocol. Boiron is an "ideal" person for the CEO role given his extensive involvement in shaping the Polygon Labs strategy and successful management of multiple departments for many months, the nine Polygon co-founders said in a joint statement shared with The Block. Boiron will report to the co-founders.

Boiron's appointment as CEO of Polygon Labs comes one and a half years after the Polygon Foundation said in December 2021 it could no longer have C-suite positions because the project is decentralized. At the time, Polygon co-founder Jaynti Kanani was also the CEO and Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal was also the chief operating officer of the Polygon Foundation.

When asked why it was creating the CEO role, a Polygon Labs spokesperson told The Block that the organization has and will continue to be founder-led and that Boiron, as CEO, will lead both the engineering and business teams.

Sandeep Nailwal becomes executive chairman 

With today's management reshuffle, Nailwal has now become executive chairman of Polygon Labs, where he will continue to actively shape day-to-day business activities.

"I take great pride and joy in community building," said Nailwal said in the statement. "This role enables me to continue in a fully executional role to continue to shape the future of the entire space, guided by the invaluable guidance and direction from the Polygon community."

As Boiron takes the CEO role, Polygon Labs's chief policy officer Rebecca Rettig will now serve as chief legal officer at the company.

Meanwhile, Ryan Wyatt, president of Polygon Labs, is leaving his role at the end of the month and will continue as an advisor to the firm. Last month, Wyatt testified to the United States House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Innovation, Data and Commerce after the Polygon blockchain's native token MATIC was deemed as security by the Securities and Exchange Commission in its actions against crypto exchanges Binance, Binance.US and Coinbase.

Polygon Labs at the time responded to the SEC's claim, saying it developed the project "outside the U.S., deployed outside the U.S. and focused to this day on the global community that supports the network," adding that "MATIC was a necessary part of the Polygon technology from day one, ensuring that the network would be secure — and remains so to this day."

Updates to the headline and throughout to reflect that the Polygon Foundation previously ditched its CEO role.