Katharine Mantell, executive vice president of operations at NextGen Equipment Finance, has built her career on the belief that automating routine work frees people to focus on relationships and complex problem-solving. She retooled the company’s legacy front-end system to standardize processes and now leads NextGen’s adoption of Northteq’s Aurora platform to centralize operations and accelerate service for customers and lending partners.

“My philosophy has always been that maximizing automation and systemization, whether it be data-entry or depreciation, frees up our people to embrace the human side of leasing: building relationships, solving complex problems or uncovering new opportunities,” Mantell says.

Mantell designs systems around the full leasing lifecycle, tailoring workflows to eliminate bottlenecks and centralizing communications to promote transparency. The results include shortened funding timelines, improved data completeness and stronger cross-functional alignment.