Renjie Butalid

Renjie Butalid is a senior technology and policy executive with deep expertise at the intersection of emerging technologies, financial innovation, and public interest.
He is the Co-Founder and Director of the Montreal AI Ethics Institute (MAIEI), a global non-profit advancing AI ethics literacy and civic competence. Under his leadership, MAIEI’s AI Ethics Brief newsletter has grown to over 15,000 subscribers, and the organization has joined leading initiatives including the U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute Consortium (AISIC) at NIST, Partnership on AI, and the AI Alliance.
Renjie also serves as Vice President of Business Development at Metrika, the leading SaaS platform for real-time, dynamic risk management and compliance in digital assets and blockchain. Metrika transforms fragmented, manual risk processes into structured, automated frameworks and key risk indicators tailored for digital assets, stablecoins, and real-world assets (RWAs). He leads global business development and strategic partnerships, working closely with G-SIBs, asset issuers, asset managers, credit rating agencies, and regulatory bodies to strengthen risk management and compliance across digital asset markets.
Previously, Renjie led the expansion of McGill University’s Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship, where he secured $8 million in funding and helped achieve a Top 10 global ranking in UBI Global’s Business Incubators and Accelerators.
Renjie has been named a Top 40 Under 40 by the Waterloo Region Record. He is a member of the Banff Forum in Canada and an alumni of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers.
Renjie holds a BA in Economics from the University of Waterloo and an MA in International Relations from Corvinus University of Budapest.