Our Team | Upward Exits

“You can’t make a good business deal with a bad business person.”

-Warren Buffett

Alex Shute, MBA

Co-Founder

Primary Responsibilities

Primary point of contact for sellers
Interfaces with external service providers to help sellers streamline operations
Works with sellers in exit planning
Helps structure mutually beneficial asset purchase agreements and oversees capital transfer
Creates sales packets, seller interviews and marketing materials

Business Inspiration

The Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell
The 4-Hour Work week – Tim Ferriss
How I Built This – Guy Raz
The Art of War – Sun Tzu
Masters of Scale – Reid Hoffman

Get to Know Alex

Alex is passionate about all things business, online and international. He knows that entrepreneurs fuel the global economy and is committed to furthering their cause.
Having lived in Japan for 5 years, he exported Japanese vehicles to East Africa. Alex played a critical role in the expansion of a children’s app which has been translated (text & audio) into over 40 languages and downloaded over 25 million times. In addition, he led the sales, product development and customer service of a rapidly growing European-based tech startup which has disrupted the conference and translation industry.
Married with two amazing kids, Alex calls Los Angeles home. He is an avid traveler (30+ countries), snowboarding enthusiast and self-proclaimed coffee connoisseur.
Alex holds a Bachelor of Science in International Business from Azusa Pacific University and an MBA from West Texas A&M University.

Co-Founder

Primary Responsibilities

Primary point of contact for prospective buyers
Asset migration
Performs due diligence and develops valuations
Interfaces with attorneys, lenders and buy-side representatives to structure purchase agreements and secure funding

Business Inspiration

Zero to One – Peter Thiel
The Innovator’s Dilemma – Clayton Christensen
Blue Ocean Strategy – W. Chan Kim
Principles – Ray Dalio
The Intelligent Investor – Benjamin Graham

Get to Know Mark

Mark found a love for entrepreneurship and doing business online in 2012, eventually leading him to partner with Alex to found Upward Exits in 2017.
Before Upward Exits, Mark founded, acquired and ran a number of online businesses throughout a variety of business models. Some ventures were successful and others were not.
Currently residing in the Los Angeles suburb of Redondo Beach, CA. When Mark isn’t working you can find him scuba diving, traveling or hiking in the Santa Monica mountains with his dog, Heisman.
Mark holds a bachelors degree from Colorado State University where he was also a division I athlete. Mark has also sat on the board of directors for the Ram Alumni Athlete Association.

Business Consultant

Primary Responsibilities

Works with business sellers to streamline operations and create operating procedures
Represents sellers in the disposition process from sales packet development to close and migration.

Business Inspiration

Sapiens – Harari
Blue Ocean Strategy – Kim & Mauborgne
Can’t Hurt Me – Goggins
Tim Ferriss

Get to Know Darius

Darius is an experienced exec that is advising and building solutions for ecommerce. Over his entrepreneurial career, starting and scaling an ecommerce company to $20M+ in revenue across four international locations with over 150 employees Darius has worn many hats.
Darius Co-founded Simple Global, Inc. in 2012 as an ecommerce fulfillment provider, and over seven years led his to to its evolution into a vertically integrated, cloud-based global logistics platform, focusing on international expansion and their SaaS platform’s user experience. They effectively got ecommerce brands to “go global” in 20 minutes.
In addition to his consulting and brokerage work with Upward Exits, Darius’ latest venture, ecomBLVD, aims to curate a community of Online Sellers looking for Pre-Qualified service providers. At ecomBLVD their goal is to remove friction and streamline collaboration by connecting entrepreneurs, start-ups, and established sellers with business partners we know can deliver.

Analyst

Primary Responsibilities

Constructs financial models and preliminary valuations
Receives and evaluates indications of interest
Works with buyers to structure beneficial purchase agreements and mitigate risk

Business Inspiration

Freakonomics – Levitt & Dubner
King of Capital – Morris & Carey
The Fish That Ate the Whale – Rich Cohen
The Men Who Built America (Documentary)

Get to Know Alex

Alex found his curiosity for the capital markets as a candidate of Ohio University’s nationally-ranked MFE and has continued to further his understanding as a Level 2 Candidate of the CFA curriculum.
Prior to Upward Exits, Alex worked as a CDO Analyst for US Bank’s leading Corporate Trust Services and an Analyst for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.
Having been born in Tanzania and raised in the United Kingdom, Alex currently resides in Ypsilanti, Mi where he enjoys playing soccer/keeping fit as well as reading/writing equity research reports through the Seeking Alpha research platform.
Alex holds a Bachelors degree in Accounting from Ashford University in addition to a Master of Financial Economics from Ohio University.

Alex Shute, MBA

Co-Founder

Primary Responsibilities

Business Inspiration

Get to Know Alex

Mark Woodbury

Co-Founder

Primary Responsibilities

Business Inspiration

Get to Know Mark

Darius Banasik, MBA

Business Consultant

Primary Responsibilities

Business Inspiration

Get to Know Darius

Alex Kivali, MFE

Analyst

Primary Responsibilities

Business Inspiration

Get to Know Alex

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