“Care deeply for the people you lead. Listen to them. Understand their goals and aspirations. Engage, empower and support them. When they are at their best, you are at your best.”

– Stephen Lankler

Stephen Lankler has spent his career at the intersection of technology and finance. He joined Direct Capital in 1998 and stayed through its acquisition by CIT and First Citizens Bank, holding leadership roles across departments and earning innovation awards.
Throughout, his focus has been the same: delivering the most frictionless finance experience. When a company gets this right, everyone wins: the team, vendor partners and their customers.

Lankler sees the lending workflow like an assembly line: deals move through stages, and bottlenecks cost momentum. Under his leadership, ElmBlue has focused on eliminating friction with a guided, intuitive AI-native approach he calls FinTel (finance plus intelligence), bringing people in where relationships or judgment matter most. The impact reaches beyond technology, into sales, vendor relationships and the company’s future.

He has played a key role developing the company’s mission and North Star, embedding values that keep everyone aligned. As he puts it, “It’s easier than ever to build things. It’s still very hard to build the right thing.” That takes talent, and the team ElmBlue has assembled — people who bet on its leadership — is his proudest accomplishment. He feels a responsibility to make that bet pay off and lives for everyday wins: a customer outcome, a colleague’s success, a moment that makes the company proud.

His leadership keeps evolving, and his advice to the next generation is simple: you earned your role by living the company’s values — keep living them. Be a beacon — shine a light that guides people on a successful journey.