Vivien Khoo, founder of Web3Women (W3W), fifth from left, celebrates W3W’s official launch with the founding members in Hong Kong in 2023. Courtesy of Vivien Khoo

HONG KONG — Vivien Khoo left Goldman Sachs in 2019 after a 19-year career at the global investment bank. She felt she was too young to retire, yet too old to spend another two decades doing the same job.

So she stepped down from her managing director role and made an unexpected move. She became interim CEO and global chief operating officer of BitMEX, a cryptocurrency exchange that was grappling with a series of regulatory challenges at the time.

Recalling the decision in a recent interview with The Korea Times, Khoo said she wishes she could claim she had long been…