The TechCrunch headline read, “Hashgraph wants to give you the benefits of blockchain without the limitations.” From that day onward, the world was put on notice that Leemon’s invention would be available to all, and Hedera was officially born. Of course, just like humans, companies and technologies don’t come into this world without an incubation period, and they aren’t born fully formed.

For the months leading up to that launch, we worked tirelessly on the story, the governance model, and the vision that would be brought to life that night in NY, in front of over 1,000 people in person, and more than 50,000 streaming. In an instant, the world knew what Hedera Hashgraph was. This was in no small part due to the work of Christian (Hasker, who would become our CMO) developing the storyline, and Zenobia (Godschalk, who would become our head of comms) making sure that story was told far and wide.

We spent those early years educating the market on things like ‘What even is a hashgraph? ‘How is Hedera different?’ and ‘Why do you need to build in a governance model from day 1?’.

Over time, once the network went live in 2019, we found ourselves tackling different questions… ‘Can a DLT be ‘green’?’, ‘Can you really handle that TPS?’ ‘How can we attract more enterprises to join the council?’ and more. Each time, Hedera led the way with both our technology and our thought leadership.

As the market matured, the role of marketing shifted from not just educating audiences about the benefits of Hedera, but also to promoting the successes of applications built on the network. While it’s unusual for an infrastructure company to tell the stories of those built on it, this too, has been a role that our team stepped into, to champion the great work being done on top of Hedera.

That work was done under the leadership of Christian and Zenobia, working tirelessly across a sometimes complicated ecosystem of players to tease out the best stories from around the Hedera community. It has been a great journey. As Leemon and I step into our new roles as Chief Scientist and Chair of the board of Swirlds Labs, with Eric taking over and with Charles Adkins joining Hedera as President, now is the time to open a new chapter for the Hedera ecosystem. The marketing leadership team of Christian and Zenobia will be moving on next month. Leemon and I are so appreciative of all we have accomplished over the many years working together and look forward to seeing the continued growth of the Hedera ecosystem under Eric and Charles’ leadership.