NEAR Welcomes Angela Kreitenweis as Head of Governance at House of Stake
Advancing community-driven decision-making as House of Stake goes live on mainnet and NEAR governance enters its next phase.
Today, NEAR is pleased to announce that Angela Kreitenweis is joining as House of Stake Head of Governance. Angela will steward NEAR's governance evolution at a pivotal moment: House of Stake (HoS), NEAR's next-generation stake-based governance system, has launched on mainnet, introducing veNEAR voting power and aligning long-term participation with meaningful voice in ecosystem decisions.
Angela brings a rare combination of startup agility, systems design expertise, and deep governance insight to NEAR.
Her perspective is grounded in real-world experience. As she explains:
Finding product-market fit is a hard challenge, and we have yet to prove that DAOs are a superior model for doing so. But if we want to test that premise properly, we must make DAOs not just more democratic, but more effective.
For Angela, decentralized governance is not only about making decisions together. It's about making good decisions. Every governance action should be evaluated against NEAR's North Star:
Is this the best action we can take, in our collective capacity, for NEAR to become the blockchain for AI?
Her vision for the House of Stake is decentralized coordination that serves the protocol, not itself, driven by product success, pursuit of product-market fit, and measurable achievement. Governance must create impact, not inertia.
Role & Mission
In her capacity as Head of Governance, Angela will carry the explicit mission of making House of Stake fully autonomous, anchoring HoS's key mandates and steering its journey through the phases of decentralization.
Key mandates for House of Stake:
- Economic governance: Treasury management, economic sustainability, and fee switches for AI products, intents, and more.
- Technical governance: Managing signers for chain signatures and governance matters outside standard GitHub-based processes.
- Legitimacy: Increasing the amount of NEAR/veNEAR locked in the system and driving broad participation.
- Engagement and ecosystem health: Fostering stakeholder involvement in governance, the protocol, and the broader NEAR ecosystem.
Under Angela's leadership, the mission is clear: to make HoS not just functional, but exemplary. Her role bridges strategy and execution, building the frameworks of autonomy while ensuring the transition remains rigorous, inclusive, and aligned with NEAR's long-term goals. She will help shape governance that is resilient, adaptive, and rooted in NEAR's vision for an open AI economy where AI serves people, not platforms.
What's Next
The launch of House of Stake marks the beginning of a new chapter in NEAR governance. Over the coming months, Angela will help ensure that participation becomes increasingly accessible and meaningful. Governance is open to all NEAR stakeholders, whether they build the core protocol, launch agentic AI, validate the chain, or use products running on NEAR. This is a process of co-creation that strengthens the entire ecosystem.
We're building governance not just for NEAR, but with NEAR. Every voice, every vote, every proposal is part of making this ecosystem stronger. — Angela Kreitenweis
Get Involved
📘 Learn more about House of Stake and its mission: https://houseofstake.org
🗳️ Get involved in governance: participate, propose, and vote: https://gov.near.org
Together, we are laying the groundwork for autonomous, purpose-driven governance, ensuring NEAR continues to lead in building a new kind of internet where AI works for the user.