Short bio 50 words Copy

Rafael Fernández designs the plumbing that lets strangers, and increasingly machines, do things together. He is Head of Governance and Operations at the ZKsync Association and Director of Operations at the Protocol Institute, a research and education organization dedicated to advancing our understanding of protocols. He is based in Berlin.

Long bio 149 words Copy

Rafael Fernández designs the plumbing that lets strangers, and increasingly machines, do things together. As Head of Governance and Operations at the ZKsync Association, he designed ZKsync’s governance system of a Token Assembly, Security Council and Guardians, which went live onchain in September 2024 and approved and executed over a dozen protocol upgrades in its first year. He is Director of Operations at the Protocol Institute, a research, education and media organization dedicated to advancing our understanding of protocols, and a lead researcher in its Protocols for Business group, where he helps develop new management practices for AI-native organizations. He was a core researcher in the Summer of Protocols, where he wrote “Welcome to the Swarm”, on how online swarms coordinate. He writes NPC Memo, a speculative field guide on management, and builds small experiments in how people and robots coordinate. Originally from Puerto Rico, he lives in Berlin.