Domenico Cusumano

About Domenico Cusumano

I started as a software developer. Somewhere along the way I became a product manager. But I never stopped being a builder.For 15+ years I\'ve shipped products at the intersection of technology, finance, and human experience — from CRM platforms I built line by line, to blockchain infrastructure handling $200M+ in institutional assets, to Vela, a confidential compute platform I led from zero to launch that\'s now redefining how institutions interact with public blockchains.My career has lived at the edge of what\'s technically possible: ZK proofs, agentic AI systems, DeFi protocol economics, onchain identity and compliance infrastructure. But what drives me isn\'t the technology — it\'s the moment a complex system becomes something someone actually wants to use.I\'m also a music obsessive and founder. I built Disci.io — a blockchain-native music marketplace with a proprietary DRM system — not because it was a career move, but because I love music and I believe artists deserve better infrastructure. I designed it, coded it, shipped the iOS app, set up the AWS infrastructure, integrated the payment systems, and maintain it today. That\'s the builder in me that product management never fully put to sleep.The rise of AI tools like Claude, Cursor, and ChatGPT agents has changed everything for people like me. I can move from idea to working product faster than ever before — and I bring that same velocity and hands-on mentality to every team I lead.If you\'re building something ambitious at the intersection of AI, finance, or developer infrastructure — let\'s talk.

Experience

1. Senior Product Manager

   Horizen Labs

   Jun 2022 — Present

   Led company-wide product strategy for the Horizen blockchain protocol. Most notably, shipped Vela — a confidential compute platform enabling institutions to execute on public blockchains without exposing sensitive data — taking the product from 0 to launch and establishing Horizen as the first chain on Base with native private execution.Also directed the migration of $200M+ in digital assets across incompatible architectures, redesigned institutional onboarding (cutting support overhead by 75%), and built an agentic AI prototyping framework using Claude and Gemini that reduced engineering dependency by 25%.Owned DeFi and NFT product development including the Apecoin staking dApp, which reached $250M TVL at launch. Built a ZK proof-of-concept for enterprise AML compliance and DeFi credit scoring — one of the first practical applications of zero-knowledge proofs to institutional financial workflows. Implemented Agile org-wide, improving delivery efficiency by 30%.

Education

• MIT Sloan Executive Education

  Blockchain Technologies: Business Innovation and Application

• Queens College

  Bachelor's degree, Computer Science

• Queens College

  BA, Computer Science

  2005 — 2009

Skills

• Google Analytics
• Digital Strategy
• Social Media
• Social Media Marketing
• Digital Media
• Online Marketing
• E-Commerce
• Email Marketing
• SEO
• Online Advertising
• Web Analytics
• Mysql
• Salesforce.com
• Mobile Marketing
• Data Analysis
• Advertising
• Digital Marketing
• Javascript
• Css