As seen on https://valiantceo.com/eyal-moldovan/

His journey to become a CEO has taught him many things, most notably that you miss 100% of the chances you don’t take. This is a mantra he firmly believes in, it has become an everyday mindset. He has been blessed to have experienced the highs of corporate life, and to feel an incredible sense of fulfillment in his hard work paying off, but he always remind himself to avoid complacency. Success can be fleeting, and he views every working day as an opportunity to apply lessons learned from the previous one.

Eyal Moldovan has been building and managing fintech and e-commerce products for more than fifteen years, experience that has molded him into the CEO he is today. As Co-Founder and CEO of 40Seas – a fintech platform that simplifies cross-border trade financing for SMEs around the globe – Eyal and his team have reengineered the BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) concept to deliver a new paradigm for digitized, B2B cross-border trade-finance. They say success doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, for him, launching 40Seas has been 25 years in the making.

Growing up, he spent many great summers working in his father’s retail store, where his father showed him the importance of having a strong work ethic, and finding purpose in your professional life. His dad’s store sold a range of clothing items imported from China and India in the pre-internet era, so you can imagine the endless paper trails and his stockroom overflowing with supplies. To a kid like him, this was an exciting foray into the busy world of logistics, and he was happy to be helping his dad in any modest way he could. As he got older, he began to understand the many difficulties confronting importers through this first-hand experience.

He can still remember his dad yawning constantly, sleeping way less than he should have, and grappling with the complexities of financing new purchase orders via the traditional banking system. He has vivid memories of him arguing back and forth with bankers on the phone over rates, filling out endless reams of paperwork, and chasing suppliers (and their banks) to provide approvals whenever he needed to open a Letter of Credit (L/C). His dad was calling out for greater payment flexibility, which, at the time, just wasn’t a realistic option for Eyal. It would have helped his father bridge the financial gap between selling the goods to customers and paying his suppliers, easing a lot of the stress he so routinely encountered. To this day, the challenges that Eyal’s father faced remain commonplace for large swathes of SMEs.

This is where the story comes full circle. By spearheading a new ‘Import Now, Pay Later’ model, his company 40Seas enables importers to secure flexible payment terms from global suppliers, while ensuring exporters get paid immediately upon shipment. The launch of 40Seas is kind of a storybook ending to the 25 year odyssey that began for him as a kid, but they’re really just getting started in their mission to lead a transformation of the B2B global trade financing landscape.

They recently received a $100 million credit facility from global shipping giant ZIM, which is a major source of pride for them. By embedding 40Seas into ZIM’s portal, they are establishing a best-in-class framework for cross-border trade financing that removes payment friction and financing-related roadblocks to global commerce – the exact type of solution that his dad was calling out for all those years ago!

Prior to launching 40Seas, he served as General Manager of Payoneer’s SMB unit, which he helped expand to 300 employees, servicing over 5 million small businesses worldwide, with an annual payment volume of over $25 billion. Before Payoneer, he was the Director of Search at Ybrant Digital, where he established the Ybrant Pay-Per-Click product and oversaw its international growth across three continents.

One of the main challenges he has faced on his career journey has been cultivating a healthy work life balance. Eyal can’t stress enough how important it is to proactively allocate positive energy across every aspect of life. A healthy work life balance means creating a sustainable and fulfilling lifestyle that incorporates professional and family life. You have to value your work time and free time, and bring your best self to both sides of the equation.

Eyal has always believed in the network effect and connecting with fellow founders to bounce ideas off, to validate an approach or just seek advice. He thinks it’s important for CEOs to open up about their own leadership journeys, key lessons learned, and discuss new approaches with each other that have the potential to empower and inspire their workforces. Having just returned from Team8’s Founders Village launch event, where he formed some fantastic connections with other founders from tech startups around the globe, he can attest to the value of swapping notes with his peers. He also believes in actively reflecting on the nuances of self-leadership, as a means of mitigating the risk of burnout, which can be a hallmark of a CEO’s career.

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