Polymarket taps finance veteran Warren Jenson as CFO

Sept 10 (Reuters) - Polymarket on Thursday named veteran finance executive Warren Jenson as its CFO, the latest in a series of moves by the prediction market to regain ground lost to rival Kalshi and expand its global and U.S. operations.

Jenson, 69, comes with over three decades of experience and has been finance chief at some of the biggest U.S. companies, including Amazon, Electronic Arts, Delta Air Lines and Nielsen. He also serves on the boards of cloud storage provider Dropbox and crypto firm Ripple.

"His experience will be critical to everything we build from here," Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan said.

Once a niche corner of the crypto sector, prediction markets — which allow users to trade on the outcomes of various events — have exploded in popularity in recent years. In August, volumes at Kalshi and Polymarket, the two largest prediction market exchanges, stood at $48.4 billion, according to Piper Sandler.  

But Kalshi's volumes of $40 billion during the month were nearly five times that of previous leader Polymarket, the data showed. 

Polymarket has been adding more senior leaders across the company as it attempts to reverse the market-share decline, bringing in former Uber executive Travis VanderZanden as its chief growth officer this year.

Jenson, who helped shape Amazon.com during its early days, will report to Coplan and aid in strengthening Polymarket's long-term planning as it looks to scale, the company said.

Polymarket, which turned six earlier this year and surpassed $1 billion in annualized revenue, has also partnered with LeBron James, the NBA's all-time top scorer, to promote its platform.

(Reporting by Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru; Editing by Jonathan Ananda)