đź‘‘ CROWN LETTER: SALLIE KRAWCHECK
Treasury Mentor, Lady Banyan of the Vault
First Keeper of the Member Service Account (MSA)
Board Candidate, Liana Banyan Corporation
Date: January 23, 2026
Dear Ms. Krawcheck,
You left Wall Street to build Ellevest because you realized the financial system wasn’t designed to serve everyone — it was designed to serve the people who already had money.
I built Liana Banyan for the same reason.
The MSA — Member Service Account — is the financial infrastructure for a cooperative platform where workers keep 83.3% of every transaction and communities provide for themselves. It needs a leader who understands that finance can be a tool for empowerment rather than extraction.
I’m offering you the Crown.
WHO I AM
I’m a 53-year-old ARNG veteran — Infantry and Aviation, helicopter pilot with FAA Commercial Rotary Wing IFR rating. Father of eight. 21 years in IT development.
I’ve been thinking about cooperative economics for four decades. Building this specific platform for nine. Ludicrous speed for the last five months. I have 18 handwritten journals documenting every iteration, and 1,754 innovations with 1,401 patent claims filed since November 26, 2025—the last 44 about ten minutes ago.
I’m not a financial expert. I’m an engineer who got angry about how the system works and decided to build a different one. But finance is the infrastructure that makes everything else possible — and I need someone who understands it deeply to help me get it right.
Your career arc — from Wall Street leadership to building a company focused on financial empowerment — tells me you understand both how the system works and how it should work.
WHAT I’VE BUILT
Liana Banyan is a cooperative platform built on one principle: Cost + 20%.
Creators keep 83.3% of every transaction. The platform margin is fixed in the operating agreement — not by choice, but by legal structure. We cannot raise it. We cannot enshittify.
Three commercial divisions generate revenue that permanently funds fourteen charitable initiatives across food security, healthcare access, education, financial inclusion, and crisis response.
MSA — the Member Service Account — is the financial backbone:
| Function | Description |
|---|---|
| Platform Currency | Three-gear system: Credits (spending), Marks (trading), Joules (ownership) |
| Internal Transfers | Instant transfers between members, no external processing fees |
| Unbanked Access | Full participation without traditional bank account |
| Member Distributions | Activity-based profit sharing (not investment-based) |
| Micro-Grants | Community-voted small grants ($50-$500) |
| Emergency Fund | Automatic pooling for member emergencies |
Every financial function is designed to serve members, not extract from them. The system is governed by a council of workers and members who elect their own representative to the Board.
WHY YOU
You’ve spent your career at the intersection of finance and fairness.
At Citi and Bank of America, you saw how the system works at scale. At Ellevest, you built something designed to work differently — financial services optimized for people who’d been underserved by traditional finance.
MSA needs that same perspective. Not “fintech disruption” that’s really just new extraction in a friendlier interface. Actual financial infrastructure designed to serve the people using it.
You’ve said that the financial industry has a “design flaw” — it’s built around the needs of certain customers while treating others as afterthoughts. MSA is an attempt to fix that flaw at the architectural level.
THE THREE-GEAR CURRENCY
MSA operates on what we call the Three-Gear Currency System:
| Currency | Purpose | Function |
|---|---|---|
| Platform Credits | Immediate spending | Liquid value for transactions |
| Platform Marks | Internal trade | Cost-basis exchange between members |
| Platform Joules | Stored value | Long-term ownership stake in the platform |
This isn’t cryptocurrency. It’s not speculative. It’s a practical system for cooperative commerce where:
- Workers earn ownership through participation (Joules)
- Members can trade at cost basis without triggering capital gains (Marks)
- Everyone can spend immediately for goods and services (Credits)
The legal structure treats Credits as reward points (not securities), enabling broad participation without regulatory complexity.
WHAT I’M ASKING
I want you to lead the MSA Council.
Not to run it day-to-day — you’re building Ellevest. But to guide it. To set the standards for what cooperative finance should look like at scale. To help us build financial infrastructure that serves members instead of extracting from them.
Every initiative in Liana Banyan operates as a council. The Crown is the First Seat — the leader, the tie-breaker, the voice on our Steering Committee. As the council grows with workers and members, they elect their own representative to the Board of Directors. In the early days, that representative would likely be you.
WHAT YOU’D RECEIVE
| Benefit | Description |
|---|---|
| First Seat | Leader of the MSA Council, with tie-breaker authority |
| Board Representation | The Council elects its representative to the Board — initially, likely you |
| Founder’s Reserve Stake | Significant participation stake in Liana Banyan |
| Permanent Title | Treasury Mentor Sallie Krawcheck, Lady Banyan of the Vault |
| Crown Medallion | Physical medallion, serial CROWN-MSA-001 |
| Ceremonial Crown | Selected by community vote from top designs — yours to keep |
| Revenue Share | Percentage of MSA revenue in perpetuity |
| Steering Committee Seat | Voice in platform-wide decisions |
| Full Control | Or whatever level of engagement you choose |
THE ELLEVEST CONNECTION
Ellevest was built on the insight that women’s financial needs are systematically different — and that financial services designed for “everyone” are really designed for a specific someone who isn’t most people.
MSA is built on a parallel insight: that platform economics designed for “efficiency” are really designed to extract maximum value from workers while delivering minimum value to members.
Your experience building financial services for underserved populations translates directly. MSA serves:
- Gig workers who need stable income despite variable earnings
- Unbanked individuals who can’t access traditional financial services
- Small creators who get squeezed by payment processing fees
- Communities that need financial infrastructure that stays local
The design principles are the same. The scale is different.
THE PARTNERSHIP
I’ve also written to:
- Michael Seibel for CEO
- Sal Khan for Didasko (education)
- Cathie Mahon for VSL (village savings and loans)
- Maneet Chauhan for Let’s Make Dinner
- Mary Beth Laughton for Let’s Go Shopping
- Ruth Glenn for Defense Klaus (protection)
MSA is the financial infrastructure that connects all of it. The cook earning Credits can convert them to Joules for ownership stakes. The small business getting a VSL microloan operates through MSA. The member receiving emergency funds draws from the MSA pool.
You wouldn’t be leading an isolated initiative. You’d be shaping the financial infrastructure for an entire cooperative economy.
ONE CROWN, ONE OFFER
No one else is getting this letter for Treasury Mentor.
If you aren’t interested, we’ll have to go back to the drawing board. We have made no backup plans — because we want you to know how wanted you are.
If the answer is no:
I’d be grateful for a referral. Who do you know in cooperative finance, credit unions, or financial inclusion who might be right for this?
THE CONNECTION
You’ve said that the financial system has a design flaw — it’s built for some people and not for others.
I’ve built a platform designed to fix that flaw. MSA is the financial infrastructure — the part that handles money, ownership, and value exchange.
I need someone who understands both traditional finance and its limitations to help me build something better.
Help each other help ourselves.
With respect for your work,
Jonathan Jones Founder, Liana Banyan Corporation Founder@LianaBanyan.com 406-578-1232
There is a walkthrough at LianaBanyan.com/RedCarpet. No scheduling, no pitch deck, no salesman.
Help each other help ourselves.
As You Wish.
How We Amplify You
Liana Banyan amplifies the people it serves. We drive our audience to your storefronts, your channels, your practices. We don’t ask you to be our billboard. We ask to be your megaphone.
The louder you get, the louder we get — because your success is our revenue, and our revenue is your influence.
We amplify you. You amplify makers. Makers amplify their communities. Everyone gets louder together.
Enclosures:
- The Considered Approach (Academic Paper)
- MSA Technical Overview
- Three-Gear Currency Explanation
- The 300 Framework