# Robert Mann

> Robert Mann is the San Francisco-based co-founder and CEO of StandardC, a financial technology company founded in 2018 to help banks, credit unions, and regulated businesses manage onboarding, due diligence, monitoring, and access to financial services. His operating career began at Mrs. Fields, continued through senior roles at Laserscope, Lumenis, and Metabiota, and now centers on turning difficult trust and compliance problems into usable software.

- **Role:** Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at StandardC
- **Organizations:** StandardC, Metabiota, Lumenis, Laserscope, Mrs. Fields, Angel Faces
- **Education:** B.S. in Chemistry, Pomona College
- **Known for:** Co-founded StandardC in 2018 and serves as its chief executive officer., Led StandardC through a $4.75 million Series A financing announced in October 2022., Helped develop a platform spanning onboarding, due diligence, monitoring, identity proofing, virtual inspections, and automated audit logging for financial institutions.

## Career timeline

- **Early career** — Joined Mrs. Fields at age 24 after seeing Debbie Fields give away cookies in Palo Alto; spent seven years on the leadership team during a period of rapid growth.
- **2000-2007** — Held a series of sales and marketing leadership roles at Laserscope, culminating in Group Vice President.
- **2007-2011** — Served as President of Lumenis Americas and later held global business leadership responsibilities.
- **2012-2017** — Served as President and COO of Metabiota, a risk analytics company.
- **2018** — Co-founded StandardC with Richard Laiderman and Pooya Sarabandi.
- **2021** — StandardC said its network had capacity to serve more than 1,500 cannabis-related businesses and accept more than $1.3 billion in deposits.
- **2022** — StandardC announced a $4.75 million Series A led by Hard Yaka and launched the StandardC Monitoring Center.
- **2025** — StandardC launched VerifyC, a virtual inspection module, after live testing on Aconcagua.
- **2026** — StandardC launched a privacy-first AI platform for regulated financial institutions, designed to redact personally identifiable information before model processing.

## Achievements

- Co-founded StandardC in 2018 and serves as its chief executive officer.
- Led StandardC through a $4.75 million Series A financing announced in October 2022.
- Helped develop a platform spanning onboarding, due diligence, monitoring, identity proofing, virtual inspections, and automated audit logging for financial institutions.
- Served in senior operating roles at Metabiota, Lumenis, and Laserscope before founding StandardC.
- Has served as a board member of Angel Faces since 2013.

## Latest updates

- **2026-07** — StandardC published further detail on its privacy-first AI architecture, emphasizing that sensitive information should be removed before data reaches an AI model.
- **2026-05** — StandardC launched its privacy-first AI platform for financial institutions, with PII redaction before model processing and human authority over final decisions.
- **2026-02** — Mann published reflections connecting his early work at Mrs. Fields with present-day predictive systems, banking, and institutional trust.
- **2025-12** — Mann published a whitepaper arguing for physical, location-based verification as generative AI weakens traditional digital trust signals.
- **2025-01** — StandardC launched VerifyC after testing the virtual inspection module on Aconcagua.

## Links

- Website: https://www.standardc.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-mann-2487118
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/thestandardc

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/robert-mann
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-18