After entering a guilty plea to US charges of anti-money laundering and sanctions violations last year, Binance has made its first appointment to the board of directors in an attempt to improve its reputation.

Bloomberg reports that Gabriel Abed, a former Barbados ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, has been named chairman of the seven-member board. Chief Executive Officer Richard Teng and three other executives from the company—Heina Chen, Jinkai He, and Lilai Wang—remain on the board. 

The CEO of Bayview Acquisition Corp., Xin Wang, and Arnaud Ventura, managing partner at Gojo & Co., are the two outside members. On March 7, these appointments took effect.

As members of the founding staff of the cryptocurrency exchange, Chen, He, and Wang were among of the first workers at Binance.  At now, Wang is in charge of Binance's technological development, while Chen is a co-founder and senior executive at the company. At Binance, he has been instrumental in directing a number of critical departments, such as fiat for on- and off-ramps.

Experts in the field have voiced some concerns, but the appointment of the board is seen as a big step forward for Binance under CEO Richard Teng, who assumed the position in November following the company's settlement with US authorities. 

According to Bloomberg, Austin Campbell, an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School and consultant for blockchain companies, the board's predominately internal makeup signals reluctance to outside scrutiny and control. According to Campbell, it is not desirable to have so few independent board members who have extensive experience with compliance or highly regulated financial risk. 

Though he hopes the board will successfully steer the business going forward, he admits that having a board in place is a positive step.