Accomplished engineering leader Zain Cheng has been appointed as Chief Technology Officer.

Previously the VP of Engineering at Horizen Labs, Cheng led four Product engineering teams across Tools, Sidechains, Smart Contracts, and Infrastructure.

His professional expertise includes building high-performing teams focused on rapid iterative development.

He was instrumental in securely delivering Horizen’s sidechain solution from ideation to production, as well as architecting the most exciting smart contract deployments in the space, which include ApeCoin, Otherdeeds, and Ape Staking.

In addition, Cheng has been integral in leading Horizen’s EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) development, launching Horizen’s Cobalt Web Wallet to Mainnet, and releasing NFTs and fungible tokens on the TokenMint Platform.

“Zain’s commitment to advancing Web3 technology is unmatched. He has a passion for creating a seamless user experience and taking the Horizen Labs platform to the next level,” says Rob Viglione, Co-Founder of Horizen and Horizen Labs.

“We are excited that he is expanding his role within our organisation to help meet our ambitious goals as we continue to operate in build mode and break down the barriers for widespread enterprise adoption,” Viglione adds.

“I could not be more excited to take on an expanded role within Horizen Labs as it enters this vitally important phase of growth,” Cheng says.

“I am humbled to be leading the engineering efforts and look forward to building secure and impactful blockchain technologies.

“As a leader, my chief goal will be to find innovative ways to support and scale the evolution of Web3 adoption through our own network and beyond.”

Prior to joining Horizen Labs, Cheng spent close to seven years with premier subscription fashion service, Rent the Runway, as the Senior Director of Engineering.

He also spent two years at another small start up (H.Bloom) and seven years as an accomplished engineer in the banking industry.

With experiences ranging from small startups to fast growing companies to large tech firms, Cheng’s deep experiences will help accelerate Horizen and Horizen Labs into its next stage of growth.