Institutional Relations Lead
- Role
- Marketing
- Experience
- Senior
- Employment
- Full-time
Open to US only. Set where you work from to check your eligibility.
No BS summary
Senior institutional relations / investor relations individual contributor with 5+ years in IR, institutional research, investment banking, equity sales, or capital markets. Must have direct sell-side analyst and institutional investor experience, strong institutional writing, and real fluency in digital assets, blockchain, and token economics. Remote US role with some EST overlap.
Institutional Relations Lead
Location
New York - NY; Atlanta; Boston; Miami; Philadelphia; Tampa; Washington DC
Employment Type
Full time
Location Type
Remote
Department
Marketing
Compensation
- Remote - U.S. locationsAnnual cash range: $101K – $238K
The estimated cash compensation for this role is based on job-related factors including relevant skills, experience, qualifications, and geographic location. Chainlink Labs follows a zone-based compensation model. In addition to competitive cash compensation, Chainlink Labs provides long-term incentives and comprehensive benefits. Actual compensation packages are discussed and finalized during the offer process. Note: For select sales roles, the cash compensation range represents a combination of base salary and sales commission. About Chainlink Chainlink is the industry-standard oracle platform bringing the capital markets onchain and powering the majority of decentralized finance (DeFi). The Chainlink stack provides the essential data, interoperability, compliance, and privacy standards needed to power advanced blockchain use cases for institutional tokenized assets, lending, payments, stablecoins, and more. Since inventing decentralized oracle networks, Chainlink has enabled tens of trillions in transaction value and now secures the vast majority of DeFi. Many of the world’s largest financial services institutions have also adopted Chainlink’s standards and infrastructure, including Swift, Euroclear, Mastercard, Fidelity International, UBS, S&P Dow Jones Indices, FTSE Russell, WisdomTree, ANZ, and top protocols such as Aave, Lido, GMX and many others. Chainlink leverages a novel fee model where offchain and onchain revenue from enterprise adoption is converted to LINK tokens and stored in a strategic Chainlink Reserve. Learn more at chain.link.
About The Role
Chainlink Labs is hiring an Institutional Relations Lead to build and run a disciplined institutional relations function for the Chainlink ecosystem. This is a newly created, senior individual contributor role with a clear and commercially critical mandate: Build and own Chainlink's relationships with sell-side research analysts, create institutional-grade content that drives informed coverage of Chainlink, and support broader marketing efforts to the institutional community. This is a "build" role, not maintenance; you will own the narrative that institutions and capital-markets counterparties hear about Chainlink, constructing the strategy, materials, and relationships from scratch. The successful candidate must navigate the distinctions among Chainlink Labs, the decentralised Chainlink Network, communicating these nuances to a sophisticated audience spanning traditional asset managers, crypto-native funds, and sovereign institutions.
Your Impact
Analyst Relationship Management
- Build and maintain a structured coverage program for sell-side research analysts at firms covering crypto, fintech, and digital assets.
- Serve as a primary point of contact between Chainlink Labs and the sell-side analyst community
- Proactively brief analysts regarding major announcements, protocol upgrades, and partnership milestones.
- Facilitate access to Chainlink Labs' executive team and technical leadership for deep-dive analyst sessions.
- Track analyst sentiment, coverage gaps, and broader digital asset research coverage — and report findings to executive leadership.
Investment Content Creation
- Author institutional-grade research content including white papers, deep-dives, tokenomics explainers, newsletters, and blogs.
- Translate complex protocol mechanics, on-chain data, and revenue models into clear, compelling narratives for institutions.
- Develop a regular cadence of public-facing materials — quarterly data packets, use case briefings, and market positioning updates — that analysts and allocators can reference and cite.
- Partner with internal teams (product, economics, legal) to ensure all content is accurate, approved, and consistent with Chainlink's public positioning.
Institutional Investor Engagement
- Support the broader institutional strategy by engaging directly with accredited audiences who engage with digital assets.
- Contribute to building and maintaining a CRM of qualified institutional and accredited contacts.
- Collaborate with the PR function to secure podcast appearances, financial media placements, and speaking opportunities that reinforce the institutional narrative.
Requirements
- 5+ years of experience in investor relations, institutional research, investment banking, equity sales, or capital-markets roles, with significant direct experience engaging institutional investors.
- Demonstrated experience engaging directly with sell-side equity research analysts — either as a peer analyst or as the company-side IR professional managing those relationships.
- Exceptional written communication skills with a proven ability to produce institutional-grade content: research notes, white papers, or investor presentations that have been read and acted on by accredited audiences.
- Deep understanding of how institutional investment decisions are made and how sell-side research influences allocator behaviour.
- Genuine fluency in digital assets, blockchain technology, and token economics. You need to be able to speak credibly about staking mechanics and protocol revenue to generalist managers.
- Existing relationships with sell-side analysts who cover crypto, fintech, or digital asset companies
- Comfort operating in ambiguity and building a function from scratch within a globally distributed organisation.
Preferred Requirements
- Prior experience as a sell-side equity research analyst, particularly covering fintech, payments infrastructure, or digital assets.
- Experience at a crypto-native company or strong knowledge of DeFi.
- Familiarity with the institutional digital asset landscape — who the major players are, how they think about digital assets, and what drives their decisions.
- CFA or equivalent financial credentials.
All roles with Chainlink Labs are global and remote-based. Unless otherwise stated, we ask that you try to overlap some working hours with Eastern Standard Time (EST). We carefully review all applications and aim to provide a response to every candidate within two weeks after the job posting closes.The closing date is listed on the job advert, so we encourage you to take the time to thoughtfully prepare your application. We want to fully consider your experience and skills, and you will hear from us regarding the status of your application shortly after the closing date. Commitment to Equal Opportunity Chainlink Labs is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment in compliance with applicable laws, regulations, or ordinances. If you need assistance or accommodation due to a disability or special need when applying for a role or in our recruitment process, please contact us via this form. Global Data Privacy Notice for Job Candidates and Applicants Information collected and processed as part of your Chainlink Labs Careers profile, and any job applications you choose to submit, is subject to our Recruiting Privacy Policy. By submitting your application, you are agreeing to our use and processing of your data as required. Compensation Range: $101K - $238K
What you'll do
- Build and run a disciplined institutional relations function for the Chainlink ecosystem.
- Build and own Chainlink's relationships with sell-side research analysts.
- Create institutional-grade content that drives informed coverage of Chainlink.
- Support broader marketing efforts to the institutional community.
- Own the narrative that institutions and capital-markets counterparties hear about Chainlink.
- Construct the institutional relations strategy, materials, and relationships from scratch.
- Navigate distinctions among Chainlink Labs and the decentralized Chainlink Network and communicate these nuances to traditional asset managers, crypto-native funds, and sovereign institutions.
- Build and maintain a structured coverage program for sell-side research analysts at firms covering crypto, fintech, and digital assets.
- Serve as a primary point of contact between Chainlink Labs and the sell-side analyst community.
- Proactively brief analysts regarding major announcements, protocol upgrades, and partnership milestones.
- Facilitate access to Chainlink Labs' executive team and technical leadership for deep-dive analyst sessions.
- Track analyst sentiment, coverage gaps, and broader digital asset research coverage and report findings to executive leadership.
- Author institutional-grade research content including white papers, deep-dives, tokenomics explainers, newsletters, and blogs.
- Translate complex protocol mechanics, on-chain data, and revenue models into clear narratives for institutions.
- Develop a regular cadence of public-facing materials, including quarterly data packets, use case briefings, and market positioning updates, that analysts and allocators can reference and cite.
- Partner with internal teams including product, economics, and legal to ensure all content is accurate, approved, and consistent with Chainlink's public positioning.
- Support the broader institutional strategy by engaging directly with accredited audiences who engage with digital assets.
- Contribute to building and maintaining a CRM of qualified institutional and accredited contacts.
- Collaborate with the PR function to secure podcast appearances, financial media placements, and speaking opportunities that reinforce the institutional narrative.
What they require
- 5+ years of experience in investor relations, institutional research, investment banking, equity sales, or capital-markets roles, with significant direct experience engaging institutional investors.
- Demonstrated experience engaging directly with sell-side equity research analysts, either as a peer analyst or as the company-side IR professional managing those relationships.
- Exceptional written communication skills with a proven ability to produce institutional-grade content such as research notes, white papers, or investor presentations that have been read and acted on by accredited audiences.
- Deep understanding of how institutional investment decisions are made and how sell-side research influences allocator behaviour.
- Genuine fluency in digital assets, blockchain technology, and token economics.
- Ability to speak credibly about staking mechanics and protocol revenue to generalist managers.
- Existing relationships with sell-side analysts who cover crypto, fintech, or digital asset companies.
- Comfort operating in ambiguity and building a function from scratch within a globally distributed organisation.
- Preferred: Prior experience as a sell-side equity research analyst, particularly covering fintech, payments infrastructure, or digital assets.
- Preferred: Experience at a crypto-native company or strong knowledge of DeFi.
- Preferred: Familiarity with the institutional digital asset landscape, including who the major players are, how they think about digital assets, and what drives their decisions.
- Preferred: CFA or equivalent financial credentials.
- Try to overlap some working hours with Eastern Standard Time (EST).
Benefits
- Long-term incentives.
- Comprehensive benefits.
- Global and remote-based roles.
Chainlink is the industry-standard oracle platform bringing the capital markets onchain and powering the majority of decentralized finance (DeFi). The Chainlink stack provides data, interoperability, compliance, and privacy standards for blockchain use cases including institutional tokenized assets, lending, payments, and stablecoins.