About Lendistry

Everett K. Sands is the CEO & President of Lendistry. With more than 20 years of experience in banking and commercial real estate, including tenures at national and community banks, Mr. Sands has been invited to deliver his expertise in a variety of public venues, from Congressional testimonies to conferences hosted by FORTUNE, among others, to national business media, including the Wall Street Journal, CNBC and Bloomberg. Mr. Sands is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, an Advisory Board member of The Penn Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR), and a Board member of The Center by Lendistry. Mr. Sands believes that, as a lender, the way to show up in a high-quality way for small businesses is to innovate new ways to open up access to capital and financial education. ​

Jeff has over 30 years of experience in the financial services industry. Most recently, he served for 16 years as the CFO of Oppenheimer Holdings Inc., a publicly traded middle market investment bank and full-service broker-dealer based in New York. Prior to that, Jeff was an audit partner at Deloitte, where he spent 14 years providing audit and business advisory services to banking and securities industry clients out of New York, Tokyo, and Seattle. Jeff is a graduate of Michigan State University with a Master of Business Administration from Columbia University. He is a Certified Public Accountant and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Lynn A. Fernandez has been a leader in the banking world for over 30 years. Most recently, she served as Senior Vice President at Comerica Bank, where she directed 100+ banking locations throughout California. Before that, Fernandez oversaw small business banking in Southern California and the Pacific Northwest as Senior Vice President at Bank of America.

Kyle Funn brings over 12 years of business experience to Lendistry, both as a corporate attorney and in-house operator. Most recently, Mr. Funn was a senior corporate associate in the Los Angeles office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, P.C., where he advised private companies and venture capital and private equity funds in a variety of corporate and securities law matters. Prior to that, he was a corporate associate at Cypress LLP, where he provided broad-based corporate representation to start-up and private growth companies and private equity firms in a variety of industries, including technology, healthcare, financial services, entertainment and media, and manufacturing. Mr. Funn received his undergraduate degree at Howard University and law degree at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

Scharrell Jackson brings to Lendistry over 20 years of excellence in operations. Her previous roles include twenty years as COO at Squar Milner and, more recently, COO of BPM LLP, one of the 50 largest public accounting and advisory firms in the country. Her keen oversight of day-to-day operations and ability to achieve sustainable, scalable growth form a foundation for each firm’s innovation and growth models. As a graduate of UCLA, a long-standing board member at several community service and youth organizations, and Founder and CEO of the Leadership in Heels speaker series, Ms. Jackson shares her expertise to help her local community.

Joe Kerwin has more than 20 years of marketing experience in financial services organizations, including a focus on the  commercial real estate and commercial lending space as a Senior Vice President at Wells Fargo. He has overseen and grown brands at large institutions and small technology and fintech startups. As Lendistry’s Chief Marketing Officer he oversees marketing, public relations and communications for the company. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Tulsa and a Master of Arts from DePaul University.

Karthik Ramaswamy oversees all of Lendistry’s technological platforms. His recent experience includes Chief Architect of Digital Platforms at JP Morgan, where he oversaw the architecture of API and data frameworks at the firm’s Central Investment Bank, and VP of Framework Engineering and Digital Banking at American Express. Mr. Ramaswamy holds an MS in Operations Research from Clemson University and has experience leading teams to develop high-performance software products for startups and Fortune 500 companies.

Deanna Bassett is a serial entrepreneur with more than two decades of financial and operational leadership in technology focused enterprises. A specialist in the critical early stages of company development, Deanna adds the discipline necessary for successful capital formation and profitable growth. Deanna has served as CFO for three different organizations.

Rob Green has over 20 years of technology and management experience with a focus on defining SaaS product strategy and leadership at the executive level. Rob has held leadership roles in technology organizations such as Dizzion, Salesforce, Viawest, Rackspace, and Verizon Business services (formerly Digex). He has held technical roles in science and engineering at the National Institutes of Health, NASA and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics lab. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer and Information Science from the University of Maryland as well as several industry certifications.