CRAFT: The Ambassador

Kirk Wagar's career path has taken some interesting detours. Het set up his own law firm in Miami in the 1990s and has been involved in Democratic politics for over thirty years, acting as Florida Finance Chairman for President Obama's two election victories. In 2013, Obama appointed him as ambassador to Singapore, one of the world's most important business hubs, where he served until 2017. Now he runs his own advisory firm, Wagar Global Advisors, which advises private equity funds, governments and multinationals.

One of his largest clients is crypto behemoth Binance, whose founder, Changpeng Zhao, or CZ, could be the richest man in the world, according to our Brazen Rich List. As we spoke this week, Kirk was busy dealing with Binance's sponsorship of the Grammys, which is taking place this weekend in Las Vegas.

We talked about what Singapore needs to do to remain a crypto center (CZ recently left for Dubai after Singapore failed to give Binance a license to operate); the advantages of politically appointed ambassadors over career diplomats; and Singapore's (to me at least) surprising decision to move fast to enact sanctions on Russia (normally Singapore, an island nation of only six million people, prefers to build consensus).

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