David Lighton

David Lighton is SendFriend's Co-Founder and CEO. David developed the concept for SendFriend in 2017 while getting his MBA from MIT Sloan's full-time program. David stewarded his early team into MIT's delta V Accelerator and Barclays Accelerator TechStars. In the process, he sourced pre-seed funding for the venture from leading sources including the European Union Smart Growth fund, Ripple, MIT Media Lab, Knick Capital, and 8 Decimal Capital. Prior to SendFriend and Sloan, David was an analyst for five years at the World Banks Haiti desk in Washington, DC, where he served on the Special Envoy's staff overseeing an $800M investment portfolio for earthquake reconstruction.Since 2019, David has been a Yale Global Justice Fellow, appointed to conduct and advise on research related to Cross-Border payments and blockchain. He also sits on the Johns Hopkins University Dean's Advisory Board. Additionally, David is a Co-Founder of Lithium Finance, a blockchain platform designed to value private assets via the wisdom of crowds and algorithms. David holds his MBA from MIT Sloan, MA from John Hopkins School of International Studies (SAIS) with honors, and BA in International Studies from Johns Hopkins University.