Meet KAST COO: Sam Kerrins

Sam Kerrins works where systems are tested.

When a transfer is delayed, a card fails to arrive, a dispute needs resolution, or a customer questions a balance, the issue lands in operations. At KAST, operations lands with him.

As Chief Operating Officer, Sam leads the layer of the company customers experience first and judge fastest: customer support integrated with treasury, card operations, disputes, and data reconciliation. It’s not the most visible part of a fintech product, but it’s the part that determines whether the product is trusted.

His philosophy is simple. Customer friction is not noise. It’s signal.

“We use what we see in customer complaints to improve how fast we credit people and fix financial issues.”

For Sam, product thinking starts with breakdowns. Rather than beginning with features, he begins with friction and converts that friction into tighter controls, clearer processes, and faster resolution. Over time, that discipline becomes a competitive advantage.

From Bendigo to Financial Discipline

Sam grew up in Bendigo, a regional town in Australia, where life was simple and accountability was direct. He studied accounting at La Trobe University and completed his CPA, grounding his early career in financial controls, process integrity, and reconciliation discipline.

That training did not teach him crypto. It taught him something more foundational: numbers must reconcile, and when they do not, you trace the source rather than estimate the outcome.

After university, he moved to London and spent four to five years working as an accountant while playing semi-professional soccer. The combination shaped his operating style. Accounting demanded precision. Soccer demanded routine, resilience, and performance under pressure. Together, they reinforced habits that now define how he runs operations.

He returned to Australia roughly six years ago, resumed accounting, and then moved into cryptocurrency after seeing firsthand where traditional financial infrastructure struggled.

Learning How Money Actually Moves

Sam entered crypto through market structure, not ideology.

He joined a proprietary trading desk focused on arbitrage and large scale capital movement between Asia and Australia. Operating between banking rails and stablecoin infrastructure gave him daily exposure to two fundamentally different systems.

“I was acting in the middle, moving between the two worlds.”

The contrast was clear. Traditional bank transfers were slower, more constrained, and built on legacy infrastructure. Stablecoins moved with speed and programmability that more closely matched the needs of a global, always-on economy.

He ran that strategy for four to five years. As market inefficiencies narrowed, he began looking beyond trading toward building infrastructure that could institutionalize what he had observed.

Why He Joined KAST

Sam met founder Raagulan Pathy approximately two and a half years ago. The discussions moved him from observing the stablecoin opportunity to committing to build within it.

“I saw stablecoins five or six years ago.”

He already believed stablecoins would scale. The question was whether a team could build durable, regulated infrastructure around them. He concluded that KAST could.

“I thought he was an incredibly strong leader.”

Sam began contributing as the product was still forming and has since seen KAST evolve from early concept to live platform.

“I’ve watched it grow from nothing into where it’s at today.”

What He Runs at KAST

As COO, Sam oversees the operating engine of KAST. His remit includes:

• Customer support integrated with treasury
• Card operations
• Disputes and chargebacks
• Data reconciliation and balance integrity

These functions sit at the center of trust. When a customer reports missing funds or a balance discrepancy, the response must be fast, accurate, and defensible.

Reconciliation is not back-office administration. It is risk control, capital protection, and customer assurance combined. In a stablecoin-native environment, precision is non-negotiable.

Speed is also critical. When a genuine issue surfaces, Sam does not allow it to stall behind process.

“If there’s a product implementation that needs to happen, you find a way to get it prioritized number one—at all costs.”

Operations, in his view, is not a support function. It’s the enforcement layer that ensures the product performs under stress.

How He Operates

There is no typical day, but there is a consistent pattern.

Sam starts with customer reality. He checks in with Anna, who leads Concierge, because frontline complaints often reveal structural weaknesses before dashboards do.

“She’s fantastic at identifying what our real problems are.”

Once an issue is clear, he shifts into execution mode, coordinating across teams, escalating technical priorities, and pushing toward resolution rather than explanation. On days without acute incidents, he focuses on strengthening coverage, reducing failure points, and raising operational standards across the business.

“It’s never accept where we’re at.”

Continuous improvement is not an initiative. It’s the baseline.

Outside of KAST

Sam is married with two young children. He met his wife in London, which remains a formative chapter in his life. Like many operators in high-growth companies, the boundaries between work and home are not perfectly clean.

“I’ll be talking to someone about KAST while driving a little toy race car around with my two year old.”

He describes it as normal rather than dramatic. The work is demanding. So is building a family. Both require consistency.

What Keeps Him Committed

Sam does not frame his motivation in abstract terms.

“I simply hate losing.”

He joined KAST to build what he describes as “the largest stablecoin bank in the world.” That objective shapes how he approaches operations: as a competitive lever, not an administrative necessity.

“Can’t lose.”