Everett K. Sands is CEO of Lendistry. He has 20+ years of experience in lending, including stints at both national and community banking and most recently as a leader of a Community Development Financial Institution. He has served as a sales leader while also sitting on various committees, including commercial lending, compliance, and rate-risk. He has managed both credit, operation and sales departments and has closed over $3 billion in transactions. Sands served as a Board Member and an Executive for two minority deposit institutions where he helped the banks’ lending teams to grow exponentially prior to joining Wells Fargo. While at Wells Fargo, he was able to grow a Washington, D.C. based team to grow from 6% to 26% market share in one year. He was promoted within Wells Fargo to come to Orange County where he grew an origination team from $150 million per year to $490 million in one year.

Sands also has significant experience in commercial real estate development, property acquisition and lending. He has closed multiple Opportunity Zones transactions totaling roughly $200 million. Similarly, his experience includes structured finance in Historic and New Markets Tax Credit transactions. He is a partner in a real estate asset management company located in Baltimore, Maryland. The company, MCB Real Estate, has a $1.2 billion portfolio and manages over 6,000,000 square feet of real estate.

Sands started Lendistry with the goal to make funding more accessible and affordable for small business owners particularly those in underserved communities. Through Sands’s leadership, Lendistry has secured both Community Development Financial Institution and Community Development Entity approvals, reached 2nd place ranking among SBA Community Advantage lenders nationwide, received membership to the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, developed proprietary technology, and closed several strategic partnerships with over 34 community and national banks.

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Sands is a board member for the Penn Institute for Urban Research and the Center for Strategic Economic Studies and Institutional Development, a non-profit offering technical assistance and business coaching services to underserved communities.

Community Improvement, Business, Finance, Business Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Black Heritage, Diversity, Black Executives, Empowerment, Real Estate, Racism