Cleary Gottlieb Expands Award-Winning Digital Assets Group with Addition of Igor Kleyman

Cleary Gottlieb announced today that Igor Kleyman rejoined the firm as a partner in its financial institutions practice to focus on digital assets, artificial intelligence (AI), and fintech. He is based in New York. 

Igor rejoins Cleary after nearly a decade of advising clients on their most pressing digital assets and AI matters. Most recently, Igor was Head of Responsible AI Governance for Amazon. Prior to that, Igor served as Head of Legal for Digital Assets at Nasdaq and as Associate General Counsel at Gemini Trust Company. In these roles, Igor engaged with a wide array of U.S. and European regulators on novel financial technology policy issues and helped develop innovative new products and structures.

“We are thrilled to welcome Igor back to Cleary,” said Managing Partner Jeff Karpf. “Igor’s fluency across the transformational fintech and AI sectors, combined with his sophisticated understanding of financial regulatory structures and institutions, enhances our powerhouse of innovation in financial services. His experience reinforces our ability to lead clients through their most novel transactional, regulatory, and governance challenges.”

Igor joins Cleary’s multidisciplinary digital assets group, which was named a 2025 Law360 Practice Group of the Year for “shaping regulatory frameworks for the future of fintech” and successfully handling “precedent-setting enforcement actions” on behalf of digital asset clients. He brings wide-ranging experience advising market participants engaging with digital assets, tokenization, AI, and other emerging technologies. Several compliance and governance structures Igor implemented during his career have become industry standard.

“Igor started his Cleary career advising global financial institutions as part of our financial products and markets group, and he rejoins us as an architect of innovative strategies and structures for companies pursuing digital assets and AI initiatives,” said Brandon Hammer, co-head of the digital assets group. 

“Cleary has long been at the forefront of digital assets and the fintech industry, and I am excited to leverage my in-house experiences across a broad range of market leaders,” said Igor. “I look forward to collaborating across Cleary’s global network to further strengthen our relationships with fintech companies and businesses exploring digital assets, tokenization, and AI offerings.”