MarcoM

Objectives

- Help position Cardano as a competitive financial infrastructure ecosystem with real deployment activity. - Promote a more disciplined, evidence-based approach to treasury allocation. - Improve how Cardano evaluates impact, focusing on measurable adoption and usage. - Support funding structures that reward execution, not just proposals or narrative. - Strengthen the link between capital allocation and real ecosystem outcomes (users, transactions, TVL, revenue). - Contribute to clearer prioritization across infrastructure, execution, and growth layers.

Motivation

The motivation to become a DRep comes from direct experience working across ecosystems where capital is often deployed without sufficient accountability to outcomes. Cardano is at a stage where governance can become a competitive advantage if it prioritizes execution, transparency, and measurable impact. The goal is to bring an operator perspective into governance: understanding what it actually takes to move from interest to deployment, where bottlenecks exist, and how funding decisions can better reflect real-world constraints. This includes experience in structuring partnerships, evaluating projects, and coordinating multi-party execution across technical, liquidity, and market layers.

Qualifications

- Experience in business development and ecosystem operations at Cardano, Polygon, ZKSync, and Polkadot - Direct involvement in governance, grant programs, and funding evaluation frameworks - Track record of sourcing and assessing hundreds of projects across multiple verticals (DeFi, infrastructure, AI, DePIN) - Experience designing KPI frameworks, milestone-based funding structures, and evidence-based reporting - Familiarity with DAO governance, treasury allocation mechanisms, and ecosystem coordination challenges - Cross-ecosystem perspective on what drives successful adoption versus failed or purely narrative-driven initiatives