This 28-year-old CEO was Sam Bankman-Fried's roommate, under scrutiny after FTX collapse

Caroline Ellison.

The crisis at crypto exchange FTX has put focus on its affiliate trading company Alameda Research. Reports suggest the company borrowed billions worth of customer funds from FTX.

Alameda Research, known to have made risky bets, is led by 28-year-old Caroline Ellison.

Ellison is part of Sam Bankman-Fried's inner circle. According to a CoinDesk report, she was among the nine people living with Bankman-Fried in a luxury penthouse in the Bahamas and running FTX from there.

Ellison and Bankman-Fried also dated, CoinDesk reported, citing those familiar with FTX.

Ellison is a mathematics major who didn't always think she would become a trader.

"What do math majors do? I guess I’ll apply to some internships with some trading firms, see how that is," the Stanford Alumnus had said during a podcast in 2020, in which she also spoke of her love for reading, especially reading the Harry Potter books.

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Inside Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire, roommates who dated, ran FTX from the Bahamas: report

In 2016, after her internships, Ellison became a trader at Jane Street, the New York based quantitative trading firm.

She moved to Alameda Research in less than two years. She had met FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and said it was "too cool of an opportunity" to let go.

At Alameda, Ellison rose to the rank CEO in just two years. She said the stint offered her insights into how companies work, something she had never thought about in previous roles as just one of the employees there.

"Once you are like one of the few people in a small startup, you realise that there are a bunch of decisions that have to be made, and someone has to make all of them," she said in the 2020 interview. "And a lot of them are like really uncertain, which is kind of terrifying."