Mark Phillips is the co-founder of Steakhouse Financial, a decentralized finance (DeFi) advisory firm, and Grove Labs, a subsidiary building credit infrastructure for the Sky Ecosystem. He previously worked in finance roles at Deloitte Consulting and Thermo Fisher Scientific before moving into decentralized finance.

Overview

Phillips has been active in DeFi, particularly through his work with MakerDAO, now known as the Sky Ecosystem. He has contributed through Steakhouse Financial. He is a co-founder of Grove, a credit infrastructure protocol operating as a Sky Prime Agent within the Sky Ecosystem.

Education

Mark Phillips attended Northeastern University. He earned a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Finance and Management. ^[4]

Career

Prior to joining Deloitte, Phillips held finance and analyst roles at Bentley Motors, John Hancock Life Insurance Company, and Pinnacle Health Management between 2009 and 2015.

Senior Consultant, Deloitte Consulting, Boston (Jun 2017 – Oct 2018): managed the economic lifecycle of the practice's largest tax client, a global alternative asset manager with $430 billion in assets under management, overseeing nine consultants and over $300 million in gross service revenue.

Finance Manager, then Senior Finance Manager, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, Massachusetts (Oct 2018 – Oct 2021): worked within the Laboratory Products Division; promoted to Senior Finance Manager in Aug 2020.

Independent Consultant (Oct 2021 – Nov 2022). ^[4]

Steakhouse Financial

In September 2022, Phillips co-founded Steakhouse Financial, a DeFi financial advisory firm that has played an advisory role to MakerDAO/Sky. Steakhouse Financial also co-founded Chronicle Labs, an onchain oracle provider. ^[3]

Grove Labs

In January 2025, Mark Phillips co-founded Grove Labs alongside Kevin Chan and Sam Paderewski. Grove Labs, a subsidiary of Steakhouse Financial, focuses on developing credit infrastructure within the DeFi landscape, particularly as part of the Sky Ecosystem. ^[1] Grove has successfully facilitated over $5 billion in onchain capital allocations. The lab incubated Grove, a credit infrastructure protocol that emerged from stealth in June 2025, receiving over $1 billion allocation from the Sky Ecosystem into the Janus Henderson Anemoy AAA CLO Strategy (JAAA), launched in collaboration with Centrifuge. ^[2]