Micah Winkelspecht Founder,CEO

Micah Winkelspecht is the CEO and Founder of Gem. Micah has been active in bitcoin since 2012. In the early days, Micah established an active Bitcoin community in Los Angeles and grew it to over 1,000 members. Micah is also a significant contributor to the blockchain developer community as the author of MoneyTree, a popular open-source library used to create blockchain wallets and the first Ruby implementation of a Bitcoin HD wallet. Prior to his contributions to blockchain technology, Micah spent 10+ years developing software for companies including AT&T Interactive, Guide Financial and Pose.

When it was founded, Gem offered security-as-a-service for developers building on top of Bitcoin. As blockchain technology popularized, Gem was increasingly approached by financial institutions to apply our security to other digital assets. We designed GemOS to expand security beyond digital assets, to apply it to identity, data, and logic frameworks that can be implemented on a blockchain. Today, Gem works with leaders in finance, healthcare, insurance and beyond.

Emily Vaughn Headof Accounts

Emily grew up in South Mississippi, where she learned to sail and survive hurricanes, though thankfully not in the same day. She made a small but timely investment into bitcoin in 2012, a decision that prompted and financed an abrupt personal pivot that eventually landed her a career in the industry. Emily is a graduate of the University of Alabama, where she now supports student innovation as a founding chairperson to the Board of Advisors for the Office of Community Affairs. Emily travels constantly, a lifestyle that suits her nomadic nature, but when she dreams of peace, it’s on a quiet farm in Tennessee. She spends her time doodling, discovering new music, watching Vine compilations and Rihanna music videos. The opportunity to join Gem was nothing short of serendipitous. Emily didn’t think twice and hasn’t looked back.

Siva Kannan VP,Engineering

Born in Hyderabad, India, Siva’s formative years with math and physics included solving logic problems with his mathematician grandfather, sticking a math instrument into an electric socket to discover what electricity felt like, and outrunning a cyclist crossing his path by calculating their mutual velocities. After graduating from the University of Madras, Siva worked at Microsoft, Symantec, and myDevices. Siva thrives on running, skydiving, bungee jumping, and teaching driving to new Indian immigrants. The low point of that experience occurred on Seattle’s SR 520 Floating Bridge during a torrential downpour, when Siva realized that his panicked student driver suffered from aquaphobia. Siva joined Gem to combine his passions for building operating systems, securing operating systems and platforms, and creating IoT platforms.

Jeff Shelton VP,Product

Jeff grew up on the sandy beaches of Maui where his family had been working in the sugar industry since the 40’s. An avid golfer and go to caddie for Michael Jordan and other celebrities in Maui, Jeff made a difficult move to Seattle, where he earned a dual degree in Creative Literature and Cinema Studies at the University of Washington. Jeff worked in every medium and genre, making music videos, producing documentaries, online content, and educational materials, as he wound his way from the Independent Feature Project in Seattle to Madonna’s Maverick Films, then Content House, Crash.tv, New York Times Baseline, and finally, Studymode. His body of creative, consumer, and enterprise focused work brought Jeff home to Gem. While not at work , Jeff is an active leader in the product community and currently sits on the board of directors for the Product Managers Association of Los Angeles.

Joshua Lederman VP,Solutions

Joshua grew up in Yardley Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia, among five other siblings. He graduated from Pennsylvania State University with a degree in Geographic Information Sciences. Post college, Joshua pursued a career involving GIS and civil service by joining the intelligence community. He came across Palantir Technologies in its early stages and decided to take on the risk and challenge of being part of building a nascent data intelligence platform. Over the next five and a half years at Palantir, Joshua worked across industries ranging from DoD counterterrorism work, counterproliferation/export supply chains, cyber security, local law enforcement, and standing up a philanthropic project with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. With his Palantir chapter closed, Joshua wanted to pursue his next endeavor with a company that really wanted to make a big impact in the way people interact. He found Gem.