Ripple Prime Head Marc Asch to Step Down; Noel Kimmel Takes Over
Marc Asch, founder of Hidden Road and head of Ripple Prime, leaves at the end of the year. SVP Noel Kimmel steps up to lead the prime brokerage unit Ripple bought for $1.25 billion in April 2025.
Ripple's $1.25 billion prime brokerage bet gets a new boss. Marc Asch, founder of Hidden Road and head of Ripple Prime, leaves at the end of the year. Noel Kimmel, an SVP at the unit, steps up to run the business and team within Ripple. A Ripple spokesperson confirmed the handover on Nov. 9.
"As he moves on at the end of the year to pursue new opportunities, Noel Kimmel, SVP, Ripple Prime is stepping up to lead the business and team within Ripple"
Ripple spokesperson
The company also thanked the departing founder. "We're extremely grateful to Marc for everything he did as founder of Hidden Road, now Ripple Prime," the spokesperson said.
The deal behind the job
Ripple announced the $1.25 billion Hidden Road acquisition in April 2025. The rebrand to Ripple Prime followed in October 2025.
Asch founded Hidden Road in 2018. Before that: SAC Capital and Point72.
Ripple Prime offers prime brokerage, clearing and financing across digital assets and traditional markets. It accepts RLUSD as collateral for some products and is migrating post-trade activity onto the XRP Ledger.
Hidden Road was the biggest of Ripple's 2025 buys. Others included GTreasury at $1 billion and Rail at $200 million.
Why the handover matters
Ripple is leaning hard on institutional products. The company expects a $900 million annualized product revenue run rate by the end of 2026, and RLUSD recently went live across Coinbase Prime, Exchange and the retail app. Prime brokerage is a core channel for that push.
What to watch: whether client momentum and the XRP Ledger migration hold pace under Kimmel.
Ripple has not said what Asch will do next beyond "new opportunities."
