Maxim Ermilov is a finance and strategy professional whose career has spanned management consulting, corporate venture building, and decentralized finance (DeFi). He held senior partnership roles at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and PwC before co-founding the venture firm Reaction and founding the DeFi protocol Overnight Finance, where he focuses on blockchain-based asset management and the design of yield-bearing stablecoins. ^[2]​

Education

Ermilov has a background in international business and finance. In 1998, he completed a master’s degree at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics. He concurrently earned a bachelor's degree in international business from ESSEC Business School through a double-degree exchange program. He later completed an MBA at INSEAD in 2003. In 2018, he furthered his executive education by attending the Stanford Executive Program at Stanford University. ^[3]​

Career

Ermilov began his career in 1999 at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where he worked for over a decade, advancing from Associate to Principal. From 2012 to 2016, he served as a Partner and Managing Director, leading the firm's work with financial institutions in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). During his time at BCG, he led a project to develop Tinkoff Credit Systems. In 2017, Ermilov joined PwC as a Partner, where he was responsible for managing the firm’s strategy consulting unit. He transitioned into venture building in 2018, becoming the founder and managing director of the Moscow subsidiary of Mach49, a corporate innovation firm. He held this role until 2021. In 2020, while still at Mach49, he co-founded the venture firm Reaction, where he serves as a founding partner. In 2021, Ermilov founded Overnight Finance, a DeFi protocol. At Overnight, he works on building blockchain-based asset management strategies and designing yield-oriented stablecoins. ^[1]​

Interviews

Overnight Finance AMA

In May 2022, Ermilov and the Overnight Finance team held their first AMA, where they outlined the project’s background, noting Ermilov’s earlier work in traditional finance and the motivation to build a low-risk, yield-oriented stablecoin product. They introduced USD+ as a mechanism for deploying USDC into conservative, yield-generating on-chain strategies. They described its main applications as liquidity management, improving returns on decentralized exchanges, and supporting leveraged yield farming with limited liquidation exposure. The discussion covered the platform’s risk-management approach, recent developments such as deployment on Polygon and code reviews, and plans to expand to additional chains, grow B2B liquidity sourcing, and build a broader community. The team also addressed concerns around liquidity and transaction costs, described key partnerships and security layers, and closed by encouraging continued user engagement and feedback. ^[6]​

Panels

Hack Summit Panel

At the Hack Summit roundtable in May 2024, Ermilov joined Regan Bozman (Lattice Capital), Potter Li (Ethsign), Josie Leung (MilkyWay), and Trevor Aron (Doormat) to discuss emerging technologies and their impact on the industry. The panel covered a range of projects, including Doormat’s self-custodial wallet built on threshold signing, Overnight’s yield-bearing stablecoin and delta-neutral strategy design, Ethsign’s decentralized contract-execution tools, and MilkyWay’s liquid staking protocol for the modular ecosystem. The conversation focused on simplifying complex processes for users, strengthening security through improved key management, and anticipating shifts in adoption as DeFi products evolve. Ermilov emphasized the importance of sustainable yield generation and the role of delta-neutral approaches, while the group considered how crypto could influence traditional business models. The session closed with reflections on adoption trends and an acknowledgement of the innovative work represented on the panel. ^[7]​