Meet KAST Head of Cards: Brad Scott

Powerful companies are built by people who know how to make difficult things work.

At KAST, Brad Scott does exactly that.

As Head of Cards, Brad oversees the journey from an early card concept to a finished product in a user’s hands. That includes design, materials, manufacturing, inventory, product experience and delivery across more than 100 countries.

It is a role where technology meets physical production, global logistics and financial infrastructure. Few people understand all four.

Brad does.

From KAST’s Earliest Days

Brad joined KAST in August 2024, only a few months after the company started operating.

The team was small, the pace was relentless and nobody stayed neatly inside a job description.

Brad worked alongside Sam and other early team members from a home office in Australia, handling whatever the business needed: concierge, treasury, card management, finance, website updates, bug fixes and operations.

“We were doing everything. Literally everything you can think of.”

That experience gave Brad a full view of the business before specialist teams and formal functions were in place.

As KAST grew, his role became more focused. Today, he leads one of the company’s most operationally complex areas.

Building More Than a Card

A card may look simple when it arrives. The process behind it is not.

Brad manages card design, materials, manufacturers, production schedules, inventory and international logistics. He also works closely with the card product team to improve how users manage their cards inside the KAST app.

That means thinking about both sides of the product.

The digital experience needs to feel simple and work reliably. Meanwhile, the physical card must be designed, tested, manufactured and shipped at scale.

A new card can take around six months to move from its first concept through prototypes and production to a user’s wallet.

Brad led that process for KAST’s V2 cards.

“It takes about six months to get a card manufactured, through prototyping and into the user’s hand.”

The work involves repeated testing, detailed reviews and constant coordination with production partners.

Brad is serious about the process, although he is less formal when describing the final result.

“I think we’ve got the sexiest-looking cards in the market.”

A Global Operation Hidden Inside an Envelope

Designing and manufacturing the card is only half the job.

Brad also oversees the operation that gets it to users across more than 100 countries.

Every market can bring different customs requirements, shipping conditions, provider restrictions and regulatory considerations. Global events can interrupt routes. One delayed shipment may require a completely different solution from another.

“It’s very dynamic. Every day is different.”

Brad begins each day by checking high-priority channels for incidents and reviewing card-related support activity.

Once the operation is stable, he moves into new card programs, designs, provider work and reporting.

He breaks the role into three clear priorities:

“Make sure everything is working, work on the new projects and take care of the reporting.”

Simple in theory. Much harder across a global card operation.

Before Card Programs, Brad Built Kitchens

Brad’s career did not begin in finance.

Born in South Africa and raised on Australia’s Gold Coast, he left school and trained as a shopfitter and cabinetmaker.

He spent around seven years in the trade and became fully qualified. He regularly applies these skills in his spare time to extensive, hands-on home renovation projects.

During the final two years of his trade career, he returned to university to study finance and financial planning.

It was an unusual shift, but the two careers share something important: both require precision, planning and an understanding of how separate parts fit together.

Brad later moved from traditional financial planning into crypto and blockchain, where the industry’s speed and technical possibilities suited him better.

Early Experience in Tokenized Real-World Assets

Brad’s first major crypto role was at Kinesis Money in Brisbane.

The company held physical gold and silver across 12 secure vaults and represented those assets through tokens on the Stellar blockchain.

Brad managed global metal audits, token minting and burning, and parts of the exchange where users could trade between tokenized metals, digital assets and traditional currencies.

Today, tokenized physical assets are widely discussed as real-world assets, or RWAs.

Brad was already working with the model in 2019.

“Today they call these real-world assets. We were doing this in 2019.”

The role gave him early experience connecting physical assets, blockchain infrastructure and user-facing financial products.

That combination would later become highly relevant at KAST.

Trading Through Crypto’s Most Difficult Moments

Brad then moved into institutional over-the-counter trading.

There, he helped provide liquidity to exchanges, corporate firms and hedge funds. He also worked through some of the industry’s most volatile periods, including the collapses of Luna and FTX.

“Those were some crazy times. Very wild, but I learned a lot.”

Working through those events required quick decisions, strong risk awareness and the ability to operate under pressure while markets moved around the clock.

It also gave Brad a close view of how institutional clients, exchanges and liquidity providers respond when systems are tested.

After several years in trading and market infrastructure, he wanted to return to building products.

KAST gave him that opportunity.

Why He Joined KAST

Brad had already seen how quickly blockchain networks could move value across borders.

What interested him was bringing that efficiency into everyday financial activity.

“I always thought, if I could operate my life on blockchain, it would be so quick and easy to send money to friends, pay for things and move money globally.”

Sam, whom Brad knew from a previous role, approached him about joining the early KAST team.

The idea of helping build a global financial product around blockchain and stablecoin infrastructure immediately made sense.

“It seemed like the perfect timing to jump head first into the business and start building.”

Building the Infrastructure for What Comes Next

Brad’s long-term vision for KAST extends beyond being known primarily as a crypto card.

He sees the company developing into a broader financial platform that users can rely on across more parts of their financial lives. A major part of that journey is connecting KAST to real-time local payment rails in more markets.

Blockchain rails can often be introduced relatively quickly. Local fiat infrastructure is harder. It requires banking relationships, regulatory work, technical integrations and market-by-market operations.

“Where the hard work comes in is on the fiat integrations.”

That difficulty can also become an advantage.

Individual features are relatively easy to copy. Building a reliable network of local payment connections across multiple countries takes far more time, capital and operational expertise.

Brad believes completing that work early can create a strong foundation for KAST as financial activity continues to evolve.

He is also watching how AI may change who makes payments. As AI agents begin handling more tasks for people and businesses, they may need to book services, make purchases and complete transactions independently.

“I can have 10 AI agents transacting for me, as opposed to just myself.”

In Brad’s view, this could increase demand for fast, global and programmable payment infrastructure.

His focus is not limited to the next market cycle. He is thinking about the systems KAST may need as financial activity increasingly moves between people, software and global payment networks.

Leadership Without Micromanagement

Brad’s leadership style is built around ownership.

He wants team members to understand their responsibilities, contribute to product decisions and feel comfortable raising concerns.

“For me, it’s giving people the power to do their job the best they can and making sure they’re heard.”

His role is to provide direction and make sure the team has what it needs to deliver.

“I want to make sure they have everything they need to do the job well.”

That approach matters in a function where product, operations, customer support, logistics and external partners must work together.

Brad does not need to control every detail.

He needs to make sure the right people can.

Life Outside the Card Operation

Outside KAST, Brad spends much of his time with family.

He usually trains at the gym in the mornings and plays golf or padel on weekends. He enjoys dinners with friends and family and takes a few international trips each year.

From tokenized assets and institutional trading to product development and global card delivery, Brad understands the full system—and knows how to make every part of it work.