CEO WORKS: Rocketing Early-Stage Financing for Startup Success

Join us for another informative CEO Works event on June 28, 2023 from 11:30am-1:30pm!

Unlock the potential of your business at our monthly luncheon where you'll discover comprehensive financial solutions offered by Santa Cruz County Bank and the advanced B2B payment platform, Paystand.

Learn how Santa Cruz County Bank's FDIC-insured accounts, flexible payment options, and financing options can facilitate your growth and sustainability, whether you're pre-revenue or already generating income. Experience how Paystand's innovative approach to digitizing payments, eliminating transaction fees, and ensuring secure transactions can transform your startup's operations, boost efficiency, and provide financial peace of mind.

Santa Cruz County Bank supports early-stage emerging growth companies through banking services and its Asset-Based Lending Division led by Lee Shodiss. Pre-revenue products and services include: checking, savings, payroll accounts, all FDIC insured. Payment/credit cards, and all online treasury management capabilities such as wires, ach, bill pay, mobile deposit, mobile banking, wire transfers and more.

Paystand is the largest B2B receivables, payables and payment network running on the commercial blockchain. Paystand helps businesses manage and increase their cash flow with payment software, receivable software, and spend management software that enables flexible provisioning of virtual and physical cards with custom spend controls for T&E and Opex. Businesses earn Bitcoin rewards on every transaction. Paystand has over 600K in its network and has processed over $5B in payments processed on the blockchain. 

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About the Speakers 

Lee Shodiss serves as the Managing Director for Asset-Based Lending and Innovation at Santa Cruz County Bank. With a 30 year career in finance and a rich history of executive roles in the banking industry, he has honed his expertise in various financial domains. His strong professional skill set encompasses Factoring, Structured Finance, Asset-Based Lending, and Financial Structuring.

Early in his career, Mr. Shodiss served as Budget Analyst, Cost Controller at Lockheed Missiles & Space, Inc., where he monitored and administered contract costs associated with defense contracts. He served as Assistant Vice President, Senior Vice President, and Co-Group Manager for the Specialty Finance Division at Silicon Valley Bank. Mr. Shodiss founded and managed the Technology and Bridge Capital Finance Divisions at Bridge Bank. He held the position of Founder, Executive Vice President, Regional Director/Product Line Director and was responsible for all aspects of operations of the Divisions including sales, personnel, budgeting and credit. Since 2020, Mr. Shodiss has worked as an asset-based, factoring and structured finance executive and independent consultant in the Bay Area and most recently founded the Asset-Based and Innovation divisions of a national bank with headquarters in the Silicon Valley.

Allison Steitz serves as the Head of Growth for Paystand, a venture backed fintech company that leverages blockchain technology to make commercial payments instant, automated, fee-less and open for businesses in the US and Latin America. She has held a variety of roles which include: advisory board member at Zoo Labs, an investor at BlueRun Ventures to program coordinator at Quona Capital venture firm, and more. She is excited to bring her experience as a startup operator and venture capital investor across the US and emerging markets to help mission-driven organizations in Santa Cruz grow. 

Malina Longceo works