Every family business has its own version of "all hands on deck." For Niamh Kristufek, it meant helping with paperwork at the kitchen table, riding along to the bank, sweeping construction sites, and cleaning newly built homes before buyers moved in. It also meant watching her parents build a business together, with her father working on site and her mom keeping the books and managing the business pre-cell phones. As President - Specialty Finance at First Business Bank, Kristufek leads teams that advise business owners and financial services companies across the country. Many of the conversations are different today, but they revolve around many of the same questions: weighing risk, building for the future, and helping clients make sound financial decisions.
Every business decision comes down to tradeoffs — where to put your time, your money, and your talent in order to grow. That's the lens Niamh Kristufek brings to every conversation, whether she's advising a client or evaluating her own team's performance.
Kristufek leads a national platform spanning Accounts Receivable Financing, Asset-Based Lending, Bank Consulting, Equipment Finance, and Floorplan Financing teams. Her teams work with business owners and financial services companies across the country, and the conversations, whatever the vertical, tend to circle back to the same questions: what does this business actually need to grow, and how do we help it get there.
A National Platform with a Local Feel
Kristufek is direct about what sets First Business Bank apart from the large national banks her clients could just as easily call.
"We have the deep expertise of the large national banks with the speed, nimble structure, and flat org chart to work closely with senior leaders and decision-makers," she said.
That structure shows up in how her teams are built. Rather than routing clients through a centralized call center, each specialty group is staffed end-to-end — underwriting, decisioning, onboarding, and ongoing servicing all handled by the same expert team a client already knows.
"Our teams are structured and staffed for growth so we can respond end-to-end to service the client, with speed in underwriting and decisioning, onboarding, and ongoing servicing," Kristufek said. "You'll know the entire expert team around you and get answers to your questions when you need them."
What it Takes to Win in any Vertical
Floorplan financing, accounts receivable financing, asset-based lending, bank consulting, and equipment finance are five very different businesses, serving different clients with different risk profiles. But Kristufek sees a common thread running through all of them.
"Good, solid leadership and financial discipline are needed in every vertical," she said. "A company that understands their numbers, their client base, and their value proposition is positioned to win, and we're there to step in with the right product solution."
That framework shapes how she evaluates prospective clients and how she coaches her own teams to diagnose a business quickly, regardless of industry.
Making the Hard Call
That same discipline applies internally. Kristufek and her leadership team regularly assess the performance of every group in the portfolio, holding each one to the same standard they'd expect of a business owner.
"Every business decision is about tradeoffs; choosing where you focus your time, money, and talent to grow your company," she said. "When we analyze the performance of all our groups, we're like our business owners: we have to make sure we're getting appropriate returns on our investment."
That analysis is what led to one of the more difficult decisions of her tenure: scaling down a division from its nationwide scope to the bank’s market footprint. It's a call Kristufek describes as evidence the framework works in both directions: toward growth and away from it, when the numbers say so.
Reading the Market in Real Time
Kristufek also stays close to the conditions her clients are operating in day to day. Right now, that means helping business owners navigate a rising-cost environment without losing their competitive edge.
"In a rising-cost economy, it's about pricing discipline and understanding how much you can pass through to the customer and remain market competitive, while also controlling your own costs," she said.
It's a conversation she has often, across verticals that otherwise look nothing alike: a used car dealer managing floorplan costs, a factoring client managing customer concentration, an equipment finance client managing input costs. The specifics change; the discipline required doesn't.
Learning What Good Banking Looks Like
Kristufek's approach was shaped early in her career. After graduating from Lake Forest College with a degree in economics, she joined LaSalle Bank, working with owner-operated and middle-market businesses much like the clients First Business Bank serves. Roles as an analyst, underwriter, commercial banker, and workout banker gave her a view of the full lending relationship — and, sitting in on credit committee meetings, a firsthand look at how experienced bankers balanced risk management with what was actually best for the client.
"A good banker can make or break a client," Kristufek said. "Sometimes saying no is good advice, even when the client isn't ready to hear it. It isn't always about no — it's about not right now, and figuring out how to get someone to where they want to be."
The job also demanded a particular kind of curiosity, one she still looks for in her teams today.
"What surprised me most is how a good banker could get to the root of how a customer makes money and what the risks are, across so many different industries," she said. "You have to learn enough about the business to ask really good questions, so you can give real advice and guidance."
She went on to spend over a decade at BMO U.S., eventually serving as Head of U.S. Specialty Sales and Head of U.S. Business Banking, before joining First Business Bank, drawn, in part, by an entrepreneurial structure that matched how she already believed specialty lending should work.
"Every specialty leader has their own P&L, and so do the regions," she said. "We ask our segment leaders and regional leaders to think like business owners, because that's what our clients do every day."
Measured by Others’ Progress
Ask Kristufek what she's most proud of, and she talks about the people whose careers she's helped build.
"I want to go to my retirement party and talk about people, not P&L statements," she said. "I hope I leave people better off than when I met them."
She recalls offering a promotion to a young banker who had recently welcomed a baby. The banker declined, explaining it wasn't the right time, but asked if Kristufek would come back in a couple of years. She did. Now, that banker is a managing director at a large company.
"I've had people take chances on me," Kristufek said. "They gave me work that was probably over my skis and let me learn from it. I aspire to be that kind of leader — someone who brings out the best in others and gives them chances, too."
Even now, running five distinct businesses, she describes her role less as arriving with answers and more as asking good questions.
"I try to make sure I always go into our meetings with curiosity," she said. "Sometimes I want to jump straight to solutions, but my teams are the experts, so I have to ask the 'why' questions, and keep learning enough to ask better ones."
Perspective Beyond The Office
After several years in commercial banking, Kristufek left financial services to sell real estate, another business her family knows well. Shortly afterward, her son Sean was born with disabilities and serious medical complications. He underwent two heart surgeries, survived a stroke, and spent nine months in the hospital during the most critical period of his life.
Kristufek stepped away from the workforce for six years to care for him, spending much of that time taking him to therapy and appointments. That time changed the way she thinks about life's challenges and everyday joys.
"I don't think there's any problem as bad as a health problem," she said. "You don't have as much control over your life as you think you do, so you learn to enjoy the good days, because no day is promised."
When she returned to banking at BMO, she also returned to the classroom, earning her MBA in Finance and Strategy from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
"I asked a boss at the time if I needed an MBA," Kristufek said. "He told me I might not need it to get a job, but it might keep me from a job someday. So I went back to school."
Returning to graduate school was a family commitment. While Kristufek attended classes at night, her husband took on responsibilities at home, allowing her to focus on earning her MBA.
Experience outside work also influenced Kristufek's perspective on leadership and life. Family has always been at the center, from raising three children with her husband to the volunteer work that grew out of those experiences. Today, her son Sean is thriving despite the limited use of one leg. He swims competitively and has developed a love for golf. "He gives us an innate strength and reminds us that you can always overcome whatever's handed to you," Kristufek said.
Through the health challenges, she developed an appreciation for organizations that support families facing similar challenges. She serves as Board Chair of Envision Unlimited, which provides housing, employment, and other services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
She also remains involved with the American Heart Association since walking with her son in a stroller for the Heart Walk alongside the nurses who cared for him after his surgery. Kristufek also encourages young professionals to volunteer early in their careers, both to serve their communities and to develop leadership skills.
"Volunteer work gives you stretch assignments before you get them at work," she said. "You can run a fundraiser or an event long before you're running a team. Find an organization that genuinely fires you up, because people can tell when it doesn't."
The Best Of Both Worlds
Although Kristufek grew up outside Chicago, Ireland has remained a constant throughout her life as much of her extended family still lives there. Regular trips became even more frequent after her son, Ronan, and daughter, Grainne, took up Irish dancing. A few years ago, the family restored a home her father had built decades earlier in rural Galway, where they now stay when visiting relatives.
"We're lucky," Kristufek said. "We have the best of both worlds." Kristufek is also learning to embrace a little more free time as her children grow into young adults. She's trying to improve her golf game, hopes to return to handball, and continues looking for ways to grow as a leader. At work, she said that means resisting the urge to jump straight to solutions.
"I'm trying to become a better listener," Kristufek said. "Learning new segments makes you actively listen. I hope I hold onto that as I build more expertise."
