[RFC]: Nominating a New Advisory Board Member: Lee McClelland
Summary
I’m raising a proposal to replace a member of the Advisory Board—Nick Munoz-McDonald. Nick has been an invaluable Advisory Board member since Nexus Mutual went live in 2019. However, he is ready to pursue commitments outside of Nexus Mutual.
I’ve been working for Nexus Mutual for the last three years as a communications specialist and, in the last year, as a member of the Product & Risk team, where I focus on new product development.
I’m an active member of the Mutual with a background in onchain research and risk management. As a member of the Nexus Mutual team, I have the ability to work closely with the team to ensure any technical upgrades, investment allocations, or other critical decisions are executed safely.
Since I joined the Mutual as a full-time contributor in 2021, I’ve worked across nearly every team and expanded my role into areas that aren’t fully reflected in my title. As a contributor, I’m proud of my accomplishments within the Mutual. I’ve listed my top five accomplishments and outlined why they were important for Nexus Mutual members.
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Overhauled the claims response process. The CREAM hack that occurred in October 2021 was the first claim event I was involved in. At that time, the Mutual’s claim response process was not straightforward. I used feedback from that experience to improve that process. During subsequent claim events, I refined the process to provide full transparency for cover holders who filed claims, and for members acting as claim assessors. I’ve always said that the Mutual’s core product is only as good as the experience a member has during the claim filing process. Through my contributions, I’ve ensured members enjoy a seamless claim process. This includes assisting members calculate their losses; answering questions at any hour during significant claim events; following up with members before, during, and after a claim has been filed; and providing a recap of a claim event after-the-fact to highlight the Mutual’s performance. You can read the claim event overviews I’ve included in the Mutual’s documentation for more information.
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Created the framework for the DAO teams; launched the first DAO team. I began contributing to the Mutual through a grant to update Nexus Mutual’s documentation. A month later, I worked with another member to publish a risk analysis of Pancakeswap v2 as part of another grant. Slowly, I began answering questions in the Nexus Mutual Discord server and acting as a moderator. At the time, there was no structure for passionate community members or members with rich expertise to contribute to the Nexus Mutual DAO. With initial feedback from the Foundation and other members, I shared examples of other DAO working group models used throughout DeFi. I incorporated the feedback I received from members to create the Nexus Mutual DAO Hubs Model—the current working group model used within the DAO. Since then, we’ve taken to calling these “Hubs” teams, but I alway envisioned a modular system of working groups that would be able to expand and contract over time, as needed. Once members ratified this working group model, I launched the first DAO team (Mutant Marketing). Today, there are 5 active teams with 5 full-time and 2 part-time contributors working within the DAO.
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Worked with Euler claimants after reimbursement was made available to recover $2M for Mutual members. When Euler Finance suffered a $197M hack in March 2023, I coordinated claims filing for members. In total, 9 claims were filed. Because Euler used sub-accounts, most claimants asked for help calculating their losses. I worked with 5 of the 9 claimants to calculate their losses and help them through the claim process. In total, the Mutual paid out $2.38M+ in claims. After talking with the hacker, the Euler team was able to negotiate a return of the funds. The Mutual’s cover wording states that reimbursement should be returned to the Mutual if a member received a claim payout. Once reimbursements went live, I reached out to the 5 members I helped with their loss calculation and claims filing. All 5 claimants promptly returned their funds and cited their positive experience working with me as the reason for quickly sending back the amount of their original claim payment. In total, we were able to recover $2M of the $2.38M in funds paid out to claimants.
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Developed, launched and managed listings for Bundled Protocol Cover. Earlier this year, I pushed to create this new cover product. Over the last year, more users provided feedback that they didn’t want to buy multiple covers to protect their positions. Instead, they asked for a way to pick-and-choose cover similar to adding items to your shopping cart in a web2 environment or having pre-made bundles to protect deposits in a given strategy. I led the effort to develop and list Bundled Protocol Cover, which has contributed to the Mutual’s significant growth in 2024 with $57M+ in cover sold and $785K+ in premiums earned in Q1 and Q2. These premiums represent 42.5% of all premiums earned in Q1 and Q2.
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Managed communications plan, kept members up to date through the Ratcheting AMM (RAMM) development, governance and launch process. The bonding curve and MCR lock was the largest cause of negative sentiment for the Mutual. In 2022, the community began exploring ways to solve this issue. Rei, who is the current Head of R&D, initially got involved within the DAO through this project after being less active in previous years. Rei worked with the Foundation Engineering team to design the Ratching AMM (RAMM), which has been incredibly successful. However, during the discussion phase, discussions were contentious. I led the effort within the DAO to provide an open line of communication, with updates issued on a weekly cadence. I worked with Rei to organize the parameter discussions and gauge community support for the initial RAMM parameters. Some of the participants were recognized as members of the “RFV Raiders,” a name coined by Danny Nelson of CoinDesk. While other communities shut these community members out, I helped to keep them updated. We may not have always agreed, but through an effective comms strategy, the Mutual realized a positive outcome once the RAMM launched.
I’m an avid supporter and daily Nexus Mutual user. I’ve spent more than three years pouring myself into my role at Nexus Mutual, and I’m ready to provide my expertise and experience as an Advisory Board member.
As such, I’m nominating myself as a replacement for Nick’s position on the Advisory Board. I propose that members vote to elect me as the newest member of the Advisory Board in lieu of Nick Munoz-McDonald.
Proposal status
- Open for comment
This RFC will be open for review from 30 July until 13 August.
After that time, this RFC will transition to an NMPIP that will be open for review from 14 August until 21 August. Once that review period passes, this proposal will be eligible to move to an onchain vote.
I look forward to your review, feedback, and (hopefully) support!