Episode 050
Lisa Fajardo Faust
Is your banker just a transaction provider, or are they a strategic partner in your success? In this episode of Women’s Million Dollar Conversations, Alice Tang sits down with Lisa Fajardo Faust, Senior Vice President at Pacific West Bank. Lisa shares her passion for commercial banking and explains why the best bankers are those who deeply understand a business owner’s vision, challenges, and long-term goals.
Lisa reveals why “Relationship Banking” is the key to sustainable growth and discusses how she helps entrepreneurs navigate the complex world of commercial lending to reach the million-dollar mark and beyond. If you want to learn how to leverage your banking relationships to scale your impact, Lisa’s insights on advocacy and financial stewardship are essential.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
-The difference between transactional banking and a true strategic partnership.
-How Lisa reached the $1M milestone in her career by focusing on community impact.
-Why Lisa views money as a tool for creating opportunities and strengthening local economies.
-Tactical advice for business owners on how to present their “story” to a lender.
“ The value of money is not necessarily what I can put in my bank account every day, but how my contribution can help impact those around me.”
[00:00:00] [Intro and Music] When I was a Woman of Influence recipient, the question was, “What would you tell your younger self?” And a lot of times we look beyond ourselves. We look at, you know, how can I make myself better or I’m not good enough or I’m not thin enough or I’m not pretty enough. Whatever it is—all the “not enoughs.” Looking in the mirror at myself and telling my younger self that you are enough. Welcome to Women’s Million Dollar Conversations with Alice Tang, where we share stories from successful business women who have saved, earned, or sold over a million dollars and discuss how they built their success and insights to help you achieve your goals. Now, let’s join the conversation.
[00:00:37] Alice Tang: Good morning. I’m Alice Tang in Oregon, the host of Women’s Million Dollar Conversations. Today, my heart warms up when I know that Lisa Fajardo Faust, my good friend in the community, is my guest for Million Dollar Conversations for Women. And Lisa is the Chief Banking Officer of Pacific West Bank. She has tons of history in the banking world, and she’s going to tell you a little bit more before we dive into the drilling questions for money and empowerment. Lisa, welcome.
Lisa Fajardo Faust: Thank you.
Alice Tang: Would you tell us a little bit about yourself, your position, your bank?
[00:01:18] Lisa Fajardo Faust: Absolutely. So, yes, I’m Lisa Fajardo Faust. I am the Executive Vice President, Chief Banking Officer here at Pacific West Bank. I’ve made banking my career over the last 30 years and primarily focusing on a community banking environment the last 20 years. And it’s been incredibly rewarding being able to walk alongside clients in our community, nonprofit organizations, social impact groups, and know that I’ve somehow played a little part in helping them with their mission or their goals. So as a banker here at Pacific West Bank, we are locally headquartered, and so we take a lot of great pride and work with locally owned businesses. I really admire the work of our nonprofit and social impact organizations here around Portland.
Alice Tang: Awesome. Awesome. I know you’re very active in our community. That’s probably the reason how we met many, many years ago.
Lisa Fajardo Faust: I think so. Yeah.
Alice Tang: It’s a privilege to ask you many questions, and the first one—because this is Women’s Million Dollar Conversations—
What’s your value for money?
[00:02:24] Lisa Fajardo Faust: I really thought about this question because to me, when I think about the value of money, of course, security for my family. But I learned early in life that money provides for a community—meaning that I saw my family, my parents support others, whether it was others in the Cuban community (because my family is Cuban—they came from Cuba in the early ’60s), or seeing them give their resources, their treasure to the community that they lived in. They had a passion for serving organizations in service to youth. And so to me, value of money is not necessarily what I can put in my bank account every day, but how my contribution can help impact those around me.
Alice Tang: I have goosebumps over goosebumps… I was listening to you in our prep meeting. We have decided the track that we’re going because otherwise we’d be spending three hours talking about things that we both are passionate about.
Lisa Fajardo Faust: Exactly.
Alice Tang: So we will be staying focused…
From that specific premise, how long did it take for you to get to that million? Tell us a little bit about the story if there is any, and what’s the bias that you ran into, if any?
[00:03:39] Lisa Fajardo Faust: Oh yes, there’s quite a few actually. I do remember—it’s a fun memory for me—because I spent the first part of my career in banking more on the internal operations side of the world. And at a certain point, I recognized that my value was really building relationships with people in the community, and those relationships led to new clients and opportunity. My kind of like my first attempt, if you will, at this type of new role—bringing in relationships to the bank—I had a really wonderful colleague who was a wonderful peer mentor for me, and she was encouraging me and guiding me. And I remember getting the “yes” from a new client, a nonprofit medical association, and I went to their office to complete the paperwork and to pick up a check to come to the bank. This was before a lot of electronic banking—it was a while ago. And I remember getting in my car, and I had a million-dollar check in my hand, and I was like, “Oh my gosh.” And I called my colleague: “You’re not going to believe what I’m holding right now.” It was just the thrill of that million-dollar mark because it wasn’t a constant—it wasn’t something that you came across all the time. So for me, in the right role, it didn’t take long. But I had many years of cultivating some local relationships, but also wonderful mentors—especially this peer mentor—who really helped shape me to understand how to get there. In the banking world, on the lending side of banking, you know, million dollars could be done easily. On the loan side, especially when you’re talking with nonprofit organizations, a million dollars is very significant. And for the operations organization… So to be able to bring in those dollars into the bank and be successful in that way was just so gratifying and encouraged me to continue. When I found that, from a bias standpoint, I think my age and my gender were big sometimes. I think even the fact that I’m Latina was also a bias, especially working in traditional commercial company type of environment. The nonprofit sector is always incredibly welcoming. I found that to be the desired sector for me over the years, and that’s where I did a lot of my focus. And it was just a much more comfortable place for me to be personally from that bias standpoint.
[00:06:39] Alice Tang: I see. Well, I hear a lot of gratefulness… You’re one of the most humble persons I’ve ever met. And of course, we stand on shoulders of those who coach us, mentor us, or even willing to spend some time with us pushing our career.
Lisa Fajardo Faust: Absolutely. My experience with mentorship, especially in the financial industry sector, was not positive. Women leaders rarely mentored—I don’t want to classify this as a generality, but in my personal experience, the women leaders that I grew up with did not want me to be successful. Many, many times it was holding me down for their success—they needed to hold someone down. That rising young leader was held down. And so finally I broke through that, luckily through a couple different people in my career. And I make it my mission now that anyone that reports to me, anyone that I can mentor, the first thing I say to them is, “What are your goals and aspirations and how can I help you get there?” My success is to see them flourish and move beyond me and be that shining star. That’s how I feel my success. That’s how I see it. I could never keep someone or hold someone back just for my own protection. And so I just make it a point to mentor… It’s like, how do we bring up the next level of leader in our community? And that’s what I want to focus on. Having the ability to be part of mentoring rounds for any young person or any person that wants mentorship. I gravitate to those opportunities because I just really want to lift people up.
Alice Tang: So good to hear that… I tend to have goosebumps as you’re talking about it. So I thought about two things—immigrant here. I mean, still the color is different—and I learned about 10 years ago, 5 years ago, about something called a zero-sum game, which is the scarcity mindset. If somebody gets more, I’ll get less. Actually, let’s expand the pie. The pie could be bigger. Let’s all push boundaries. Push it. And the top is flat. It’s not for one person. It’s not a triangle anymore. It’s flat.
Lisa Fajardo Faust: Agreed. 100%. The scarcity mentality runs deep, I think, in my industry. And yeah, I want to break that. I want to break that mold.
Alice Tang: Let’s do that together.
Lisa Fajardo Faust: Let’s do that together.
[00:09:33] Alice Tang: When you’re making a decision—everybody makes decisions differently—what’s your process?
[00:09:33] Lisa Fajardo Faust: I think for me, I look at the impact. So, what is the impact of my decision? How is that impact going to affect those around me—whether it’s a positive decision or a neutral decision, or if we have to make a decision regarding something that might be a little more hard to take, a little more negative? I really look at it from the lens of how is my messaging going to impact the person in front of me or the situation. And that helps guide me because I always want to make sure that everything that I do, every decision that I make, that I do it with the utmost integrity and with compassion. I try to lead with that compassion, integrity, love in everything I do. And so that’s really what guides me.
Alice Tang: Very good. Let compassion guide you. And making decisions with integrity.
[00:10:43] Alice Tang: No, we’re not going to talk about age, but which we will because people would know when you say you spent 30 years somewhere. Let me calculate when you graduated from college. But the amount of career—number of years—while you’re building to your current Lisa, there are times, maybe one time or two, that you feel that, “Oh God, this is so difficult.” What kept you going?
[00:10:43] Lisa Fajardo Faust: Absolutely. There were moments in time where I felt like I was just banging my head against the ceiling or against a wall—like that door wasn’t opening, and I just didn’t understand it. And I tried to do everything in my power to either do better, be better, ways to learn, to expand my knowledge. And it was difficult. I would tend to look internally—like, what have I done wrong? Where can I improve? And I finally realized it’s not about me. It’s about others around me. And so I gave myself permission to look for other opportunities because I’m very loyal—and I’m very loyal to people, loyal to company. You know, if a company is good to me, I’m going to reciprocate with that loyalty. And I didn’t realize that this is what I did at the time—like when I left my former employer and came to Pacific West Bank (and I’ve been here for a little over six years now). But giving myself permission to do that was huge. And that’s something I learned recently—is the ability to, when you make decisions like that, you’re giving yourself permission. And I guess I never really thought about it in that way when I had opportunity in front of me. I always thought of the other first, not myself. And now I’m like, “Oh, no. I’m giving myself permission to do what’s best for me”—and still be a contributing member of wherever I’m at in whatever community I’m in. But yeah, it’s being able to see what’s in front of you and what those barriers are. And if you’re not the barrier and something or someone else is, give yourself permission to walk away.
Alice Tang: Wow. That’s wonderful. I think you and I are somewhat similar in that sense. When something went wrong, I always go inside and ask, “What did I do?” or “What should I have done and I did not?” And sometimes I see blood on the wall and I’m still trying to go through the brick wall where the wall is not me—like you said, the barrier is not me. So I guess there is a lot of internal work that I personally did. The fearful of getting out of it is real at the time because I can only think about fear. The opposite of fear, I just recently learned, is self-love. We need more of that, don’t we? Permission, like you said.
Lisa Fajardo Faust: Absolutely. Giving yourself permission. Walk away and charter a new life, a new place, a new opportunity, help more people, mentor more people. Yeah, it’s scary, right? I mean, to be able to give yourself permission to change or to walk away or to think of something new—it’s not easy. There’s so much more that can hold you back from taking that chance, from taking that leap. But being able to be in that moment and say, “No, I’m going to take this leap. I’m going to take this chance. I’m going to give myself permission to walk through that door.” It could be life-changing.
Alice Tang: Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:14:24] Alice Tang: There’s many people who look at you and can relate to you. What’s the one piece of advice—among all the advice you have given, maybe millions of—what’s the number one piece of advice you would give them so that they can look to you and say, “I can be a Lisa”? This is the tip she gave me.
[00:15:05] Lisa Fajardo Faust: I would—and looking back at myself, like what advice would I give my younger self? I was asked that question when I was a Woman of Influence recipient: “What would you tell your younger self?” And a lot of times we look beyond ourselves. We look at, you know, how can I make myself better or I’m not good enough or I’m not thin enough or I’m not pretty enough—whatever it is, all the “not enoughs.” Looking in the mirror at myself and telling my younger self that you are enough. You are enough.
Alice Tang: Thank you, Lisa. I am enough because you said so. That’s the ripple effect. ‘Cause when you give yourself the permission to shine and say it out loud… I feel—excuse me. Me too. I mean, this much emotion. You know, I found in my older age—as we talked about how old—you know, I’ve been in banking 30 years. I’m at that age. I am just… yeah, just being able to be myself.
[00:16:35] Alice Tang: Lisa, we’re winding down to a couple of questions in our interview. And one of the things I think the audience would really like to know is either a very good quote from you that you live by, a book that you’re reading, or a piece of very good or bad advice that has made the biggest impact in your life. So whichever one you want to give us.
[00:16:35] Lisa Fajardo Faust: Okay. Thank you. Well, I recently picked up a signed copy of Shari Dunn’s book, Qualified, and I’m really excited to dive into Shari’s book. I was at a private reading that she gave, and she talked about this chapter on imposter syndrome and how we need to dismantle that word. So I’m really excited about that. I think that it’s going to be super impactful for me moving forward. And then a quote I think what’s kind of fun is there’s a quote that sometimes I have to tell myself, which is: “Let me just adjust my crown and then I’m going to start my day.” Right? I need to adjust that crown on my head and keep going. So that is definitely something that I have enjoyed thinking of when I need that inspiration. It’s like, make sure your crown is straight—and others too. You know, straighten other people’s crowns as you go through life.
Alice Tang: Let me just adjust my crown and let me just help you do this little tweak. Now you’re ready to go on the stage, on the podium, and the audience.
Lisa Fajardo Faust: Exactly.
00:18:16] Alice Tang: What are you grateful for today, Lisa?
[00:18:16] Lisa Fajardo Faust: Oh, I’m so grateful for Earth, my family. We are blessed with a three-year-old granddaughter, and she fills my heart. And I see a lot of myself—it’s funny to say as her grandmother—I see a lot of myself in her, but she’s feisty, she’s spicy, she’s curious, she’s smart. And I’m like, please hang on to that forever, for all of your life. So, I’m just really excited and grateful for my family, the love that surrounds me and the love I can give—and then most importantly, help her to be the version she wants to be of herself.
Alice Tang: Very good. Very good. We started with humble and grace. We talk about “I am enough” and pulling women up. Let those people who you mentor surpass you. Your job is to help them. Oh gosh, so much joy and empowerment for our community. Thank you, Lisa, for taking time this morning.
Lisa Fajardo Faust: Thank you, Alice, for the opportunity.
[00:18:56] [Music and End]
Lisa Fajardo-Faust is a dedicated commercial banker with over 30 years of commercial banking experience in senior roles, developing new client relationships and providing consultative financial support. Lisa joined Pacific West Bank in 2018 and serves as Executive Vice President, Chief Banking Officer, overseeing the deposit strategy and branch network. She is passionate about mentorship, development of nonprofit leadership, and financial education. Lisa is sought after in the community as a speaker, workshop leader, mentor, and board member. She currently serve as the Immediate Past Chair of Friends of the Children Portland, Board Treasurer of Clackamas Community College Foundation, Board Member of the Oregon Bankers Association Education Foundation, Advisory Board Member and Finance Committee member for Quest Center for Integrative Health.
Lisa was honored as a 2023 Women of Influence Honoree, the 2023 Corporate Champion Honoree for Bradley Angle and the 2024 Auction for Action Honoree for Quest Center for Integrative Health.