Alexi Cashen | Lies, Deceit, and a $1.8 Million Embezzlement
Alexi Cashen

Trust is the foundation of all healthy relationships.

We all want to trust our employees, family, friends, and coworkers.

This week’s guest has produced results beyond what is commonly thought to be possible.

But what happens when trust in an employee is taken for granted to the tune of $1.8 Million in embezzled money from the company? Unfortunately for Alexi Cashen, she knows the answer too well.

Alexi Cashen is the CEO, or she prefers to be known, Chief Executive Optimist for Elenteny Imports. A fast-growing multiple-eight figure wine business, Elenteny Imports is dedicated to helping its partners grow in the wine, beer, and spirits industry.

In this episode, Alexi joins John to share her story of an ex-employee’s embezzlement of her company, how she discovered the scheme, and what she and her company did to survive the ordeal.

In this episode, we also talk about:

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Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:

  • Alexi’s Cautionary Tale of a Bad Employee
  • How Her Employee Embezzlement Scheme Played Out
  • How Alexi Found Out About the Scheme
  • Why People Who Embezzle Usually Don’t Take Vacations
  • The Double Life That Alexi’s Employee Lived
  • What Alexi Would Do Differently
  • How Elenteny Imports Survived the Fallout
  • How Alexi Remains Optimistic Through the Ordeal
  • Running into Her Former Employee in the Bathroom During the Trial
  • Final Words of Wisdom for Other Business Owners
  • Who Alexi Thanks for Her Success

Resources Mentioned:

Sponsor: Rise25

Today’s episode is sponsored by Rise25 Media, where our mission is to connect you with your best referral partners, clients, and strategic partners. We do this through our done for you business podcast solution and content marketing. 

Along with my business partner Dr. Jeremy Weisz, we have over 18 years of experience with B2B podcasting, which is one of the best things you can do for your business and you personally. 

If you do it right, a podcast is like a “Swiss Army Knife” – it is a tool that accomplishes many things at once. It can and will lead to great ROI, great clients, referrals, strategic partnerships, and more. It is networking and business development; and it is personal and professional development which doubles as content marketing

A podcast is the highest and best use of your time and will save you time by connecting you to higher caliber people to uplevel your network. 

To learn more, go to Rise25.com or email us at [email protected]

To learn more, book a call with us here

Check out Rise25 to learn more about our done-for-you lead generation and done-for-you podcast services. 

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Episode Transcript

John Corcoran 0:40

Alright, welcome everybody. My guest on the show is Alexi Cashen, and Alexi is the CEO or she prefers to be known as the Chief Executive Optimist for Elenteny Imports, which is a fast growing multiple-eight figure wine business, but this episode is going to be a little bit different from a lot of the other ones that you’ve heard from me because she has a startling story to share, and it a story she’s only shared with a small circle. Up until this point, mostly her close friends and colleagues to cautionary tale of fraud and deceit but one which every business owner and entrepreneur needs to hear so stay tuned for that 

But first before we get into that this podcast is brought to you by rise 25 media which is our done for you agency focused on helping b2b businesses to get more clients real partners and strategic partners through done for you podcast and done for you content marketing and lead generation Our company has over 20 years of experience. With podcasting. We believe starting a podcast one of the best things you can do for your business and you personally even get to have amazing conversations and insightful conversations with accomplished entrepreneurs, like Lexi here today. And if you do it right, a podcast is so many things at once. It is business development, networking, client acquisition, referral, marketing, and more. Highly recommended I tell everyone, they need to have one because you’re really missing out if you don’t do it. But our greater mission with rise 25 is really to make the world a smaller fate place by creating connections helping to connect more entrepreneurs and business owners with they’re ideal prospects and referral partners and people they love to connect with and to work with. Well learn more go to rise 25 calm and as I mentioned, 

My guest is Alexi Cashen she calls herself the Chief Executive Optimist. She spreads the gospel of empathetic customer service and sales panache. She has over 20 years of experience in food and wine. And she has had experience in hospitality, retail, wholesale and supplier positions. She’s worked in Colorado worked in New York City for a variety different companies. She co founded l&t imports back in 2010. It’s a wine importer that services, other wine importers helping them with their back office needs from logistics and order fulfillment, brand compliance, and accounting. 

So Alexi, you know, we connected through an EO Entrepreneurs Organization event that you came and spoke at. And you told a very candid story about a rogue employee will put it that way, a trusted employee that ended up really damaging the business. And so let’s just start where we start. You told the story of hiring this trusted employee who came on who helped your business and where was your business when you brought in this employee? How’s it doing it? Yeah, what stage was this will say?

Alexi Cashen  3:20  

Sure. Thanks very much, John, for having me on your podcast. Yeah, so the tale or this cautionary tale as you as you call it started. Although my business started in 2010. It was circa 2015, where our business had really catapulted, we went from just an infantile startup to, you know, really full fledged business, we were close to cresting $10 million in revenue. And we definitely doubled our employee base, and certainly had added a tremendous amount of new business and customers. And yeah, so we were we were hiring very quickly, probably too quickly. And ultimately, you know, brought somebody into our team that was, you know, a fox in the henhouse, so to speak somebody that had every intention to hurt the business from the get go. And we were completely ill prepared for that.

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