Power100, the only unbiased third-party platform that ranks the best leaders and partners in the home improvement industry using a proprietary 5-layer ranking system, is spotlighting Edward Meister, Co-Founder and CEO of Pure Finance Group, for the way he is leading his company through one of the biggest technology shifts of this generation.
Across the country, business owners are asking the same nervous question about artificial intelligence. Will it help my people, or will it replace them? Edward Meister has chosen a different road. At Pure Finance Group, AI is not a reason to shrink the team. It is a reason to teach the team.
“It’s not scary, it’s not here to replace you,” said Edward Meister. “We want to make you an expert of understanding how to use it and what to do with it. And that’s the culture that we try to embed here. When we transfer that knowledge, we have a more competent team and we have a team that’s more bought in to the mission of what we’re trying to accomplish.”
That one idea sits at the center of this story. Edward Meister treats technology as something the whole company should understand, not something a small group should guard. For the contractors who rely on Pure Finance Group for customer financing, payment processing, and same-day funding, that belief shows up in a very practical way: smarter people on the other end of the line.
“Every company in America is talking about AI right now, but very few leaders are talking about what it should do for their people,” said Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100. “Edward Meister is using technology to lift his team up, not push them out. In home improvement, there is always a relationship, a troubleshooting moment, and a homeowner whose situation does not fit a perfect box. Contractors need a partner whose people can handle that. That is exactly what Pure Finance Group has built, and it is a big reason we rank them so highly.”
Edward Meister, Co-Founder and CEO of Pure Finance Group
Most companies roll out new technology from the top down. A small team picks a tool, a few managers learn it, and everyone else gets an email telling them what changed. That is often where the fear comes from.
Pure Finance Group does it differently. The company has a dedicated AI team, but that team does not work in a corner. It holds work sessions with the entire organization. Those sessions start at the very beginning: what AI is, how it works, and how each person can start building the skills to use it in their own role so they can become more productive.
“AI is a hot theme right now. Everyone’s adapting this technology or finding a way for a use case to put it into some semblance of their business,” said Edward Meister. “We’re certainly on that train, but we’re also bringing our team along.”
That last line, “bringing our team along,” explains a lot about how Edward Meister leads. He wants every person at Pure Finance Group to walk into the future with more confidence than they had yesterday.
For Power100, this is one of the clearest signs of strong leadership in 2026. Buying new software is easy. Building a team that understands it, trusts it, and uses it well is much harder.
Before co-founding Pure Finance Group in 2018, he built his career in leadership roles at Wells Fargo, including work in payments, sales, innovation, and consumer lending. He and his partners came from big companies where it is easy for good people to lose sight of their value and feel like just another part of the machine.
“It’s easy to get lost in the company like that and not always know your value and become like a product of the system,” said Edward Meister.
When he and his partners started Pure Finance Group, they set out to build the opposite.
“They have to be able to, number one, obviously execute their role,” said Edward Meister. “But number two, they have to be a good steward of the business to be able to transfer some of that knowledge internally.”
That expectation changes how a company works day to day. When the payments team understands lending, when the sales team understands the technology, and when the support team understands both, the contractor gets one connected experience instead of being bounced between departments.
“At the core, we want all those people to collaborate and be able to share their knowledge base,” he said. “So that way it’s not isolated and it’s like siloed.”
This is why Power100 sees knowledge-sharing, not any single tool, as Pure Finance Group’s real technology advantage. Tools change every year. A culture where people teach each other keeps working no matter which tool comes next.
Edward Meister wants every team member to know that the investment Pure Finance Group makes in them is for their own career, even if that career one day takes them somewhere else.
“We try to make sure that they understand we’re doing this for the betterment of your career,” said Edward Meister. “And if that takes you off into a totally different path one day, great. But at least we know we did our job along your journey of making you the best that you could possibly be.”
That is a rare thing for a CEO to say out loud. It also explains why the company has kept so many people for so long. Edward Meister has said that Pure Finance Group has enjoyed long tenure across much of its team, and that empowering people to grow and make real decisions in the business has been “contagious” inside the company.
When people feel that a company is building them up, they stay. When they stay, they learn more. When they learn more, they teach more. That cycle is how knowledge-sharing turns into a lasting business advantage, and it ties directly to the “people over profits” principle Edward Meister has made the foundation of the company.
It also connects to how Pure Finance Group hires. Edward Meister has said he cannot remember the last time he looked at a resume when hiring. He looks for grit, for people who adapt to change, and for people who are easily transferable across roles. A team built on curiosity and adaptability is a team that learns AI faster, shares it faster, and puts it to work for customers faster.
Many companies use AI as a way to stop answering the phone. Pure Finance Group uses it to answer the phone better.
The company routes 100% of client calls to live people. It does use AI in its phone routing, but only to make the team more productive, never to replace the team.
“Yes, could you have some technological advance on the AI system with the phone routing? And we do use that to make our team more productive,” said Edward Meister. “We don’t use that to get rid of, you know, replace our team, so to speak, because at the end of the day, our customer base, we work more as like a resource for them. We’re not just answering the phone and providing data. We’re kind of helping talk people through situations where they have real questions.”
That difference matters a great deal in home improvement. A contractor calling about a stuck approval, a homeowner question at the kitchen table, or a funding timeline before payroll is not looking for a menu of options. They want someone who knows the answer, understands the business, and can help them solve the problem now.
Edward Meister explains it in simple human terms. People are social. They want connection. He points to banks, which were once expected to disappear but are still being built today because many people still want to walk in and talk to someone.
“We try to meet customers where they want to be met,” he said. “If they can rely on that connectivity and build rapport with my team locally, who’s answering the phone and very knowledgeable, there’s a big value upside to that. And the technology, I think, is just going to make it better. It’s not going to replace it.”
This is where the quote at the center of this story comes to life. The AI work sessions, the shared knowledge, and the long team tenure all lead to one result: the person who answers a contractor’s call at Pure Finance Group knows more, works faster, and cares about the outcome. Technology makes them sharper. It does not make them disappear.
A culture of shared knowledge only works when leaders across the company live it. Edward Meister has built a leadership team at Pure Finance Group that brings that mindset into every part of the contractor experience.
In July 2025, the company added Carsten Erner as Chief Data & Analytics Officer, a data scientist and behavioral economist who leads the reporting and analytics work behind the platform. His focus is turning data into clear answers that contractors and team members can actually use.
“Good data should make decisions easier, not more confusing,” said Carsten Erner. “We use analytics to give contractors clearer insight into how financing, payments, and cash flow are really driving their growth.”
Jamie DeMersman, Chief Payments Officer, brings the same thinking to how money moves through the platform.
“Payments and financing should feel like one seamless system,” said Jamie DeMersman. “Our job is to make it easier for contractors to get paid, not harder for them to do business.”
Jim Affeldt, Director of Operations, sees technology and teamwork working best when contractors never have to notice them.
“Operational excellence is invisible when it’s done right,” said Jim Affeldt. “Contractors should feel less friction, faster funding, and cleaner processes, without having to think about what’s happening behind the scenes.”
On the front line, Hailey Hunt, Account Executive, explains why a knowledgeable person still matters most.
“Frontline relationships matter,” said Hailey Hunt. “When a contractor calls us, they should feel like they’re talking to someone who knows their business, understands their goals, and is ready to help them win the next job.”
The same thinking runs through the rest of the team, including Stacey Hoback, Director of Payment Sales; Todd Pramov, Director of Home Improvement Sales; Tony Prestandrea, Managing Partner; Sarah Croteau, Director of Marketing; and Michael Frascella, Senior Sales Director of Payment Solutions for Home Improvement.
“The strongest partners are the ones who show up for the hard conversations,” said Tony Prestandrea. “We’re here to help contractors build businesses that last, not just close a few more deals this month.”
Together, this team shows that the knowledge Edward Meister talks about is not stuck at the top. It runs through payments, data, operations, sales, marketing, and account support.
Pure Finance Group offers an integrated platform that brings customer financing and payment processing together in one place. Contractors can offer homeowners flexible monthly payment plans, use soft credit pull pre-approvals that do not affect the homeowner’s credit during the early stage, and collect payments by credit card, debit, ACH, and eCheck. Funds can arrive the same day, including on weekends, and financing options stretch up to 20-year terms.
The company has kept building on that base over time. It launched an integrated payment portal in 2021 and built a customer payment system directly into its loan platform in 2023. In May 2025, Pure Finance Group partnered with U.S. Bank to add Avvance, a real-time point-of-sale lending solution, to its platform. The partnership gave contractors instant financing decisions, same-day funding, and loans up to $25,000 funded upfront, with no credit impact during pre-approval. It also helped the company push further into the HVAC segment.
“At Pure Finance Group, we’re committed to giving contractors every tool they need to close more sales and deliver a better customer experience,” said Edward Meister. “Partnering with U.S. Bank to offer Avvance allows us to expand our financing options while perfectly complementing our best-in-class payment processing solutions.”
Each new tool works better because the team behind it understands it. When the people answering calls know how Avvance fits into the approval flow, how same-day funding timing works, and how payments and financing connect in the dashboard, contractors get real answers instead of transfers. The products are strong on their own. The people who understand them make them stronger.
Pure Finance Group Team
Most of the contractors Pure Finance Group serves are established companies, with the company’s sweet spot sitting between roughly $20 million and $100 million in annual revenue. These are sophisticated operators. They do not need to be told why financing matters. They need a partner who can help them make and keep more money while offering it.
For companies at that size, the cost of a confused finance partner is high. A slow answer can stall a deal. A funding delay can squeeze payroll across several crews. The knowledge-sharing culture Edward Meister has built is designed to remove those problems before they happen.
It also shapes the kind of advice the team can give. Edward Meister describes himself as a risk manager at heart, and he passes that thinking on to contractors. He encourages them to define their growth instead of chasing headlines, to understand what expansion will really cost, and to build a backup plan before they need one.
“Sometimes growth needs to be defined,” said Edward Meister. “Having a really clear-cut strategy on defined growth, I think, is critically important. And inside of that strategy is plan B and plan C if growth doesn’t go as planned.”
That kind of guidance only reaches contractors when the people around Edward Meister understand it too. Shared knowledge inside the company becomes shared knowledge with the customer.
Contractors who work with Pure Finance Group keep pointing to the same things: strong economics, a reliable portal, and people who actually help.
“We have been partnered up with Pure Finance Group for about one year,” said Brandon Nieves, a contractor partner. “I have partnered with at least 8 home improvement lenders over my career and I can strongly say that Pure Finance Group has been the absolute best. Their rates and dealer fees are unbeatable, their portal is flawless and the customer service and dealer support are second to none.”
That last phrase, “customer service and dealer support are second to none,” is the outside proof of everything Edward Meister has built inside the company. The portal is the technology. The support is the people.
Another customer summed up the relationship in one line: “Looking for a reliable and trustworthy financial partner? Look no further than Pure Finance Group.”
What started in Laurel, Maryland, in 2018 grew to 13 states by 2020 and 46 states by 2022. Today the company supports more than 20 home improvement service and product segments and has helped more than 40,000 homeowners access financing for their projects.
In 2026, Inc. ranked Pure Finance Group No. 99 on its Inc. Regionals: Mid-Atlantic list, marking the third consecutive year the company has been named among the region’s fastest-growing private companies.
“Being recognized by Inc. for the third year in a row is a testament to the consistency of our growth and the strength of our foundation,” said Edward Meister. “We’ve been intentional about building a business that scales the right way, by delivering real value to our partners, maintaining operational discipline, and continuing to invest in technology that improves how contractors sell and get paid.”
For Power100, three straight years of recognition point to steady execution, not a lucky run. And it is worth noticing that the company’s technology investment and its people-first culture grew at the same time.
There is one more reason Edward Meister’s message lands with his team. He lives it.
He gets up at 4:35 every morning to get his work done so he can be present for his family. He coaches one of his twins’ sports teams and stays active in his other child’s activities. At Pure Finance Group, the same rule applies to everyone: family comes before the company.
“If you never get in between a team member’s family and their job, they will love their job,” said Edward Meister. “I have to lead by example. My team needs to see me doing it. If I can say whatever I want, but if I don’t lead by example, they’re not going to buy into the message.”
That word, “buy in,” shows up again and again in how he leads. Whether it is a family-first culture or a company-wide AI education effort, Edward Meister knows that people commit when they understand the mission and see their leader living it. That is why teaching technology to everyone is not a side project at Pure Finance Group. It is part of how the whole company earns buy-in.
Power100 exists to find the best leaders and partners in home improvement and to look past marketing claims to what a leader actually builds.
By that standard, Edward Meister stands out. He has taken the most talked-about technology of the decade and used it to make his people more capable, more confident, and more connected to the mission. He has refused to trade live, knowledgeable support for cheaper automation. He has built a leadership team that spreads knowledge instead of hoarding it. And he has grown Pure Finance Group into a national, three-time Inc. regional honoree while doing it.
“The leaders we rank at the top are the ones who make everyone around them better,” said Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100. “Edward Meister has the patience, the values, and the precision to build something that lasts. When a CEO teaches his whole company how to use new technology and still makes sure every contractor reaches a real person, that tells you everything about how he leads. That is why Pure Finance Group remains one of the strongest financing and payment partners a contractor can choose.”
For contractors who want a finance partner that is ready for the future without losing the human touch that makes home improvement work, Edward Meister and Pure Finance Group offer a clear example of what that looks like.
No. Pure Finance Group uses AI to make its team more productive, not smaller. The company routes 100% of client calls to live people, and its AI phone routing exists to help those people respond better. Edward Meister has been direct that the company does not use AI to replace its team, because contractors need a resource who can talk them through real situations, not a system that just hands out data.
Because the person who answers your call is part of your sales process. When a homeowner is waiting on an approval or your crew is waiting on funding, the knowledge of the person helping you directly affects the outcome. Pure Finance Group runs company-wide AI work sessions and expects every team member to share what they know. That means faster, more accurate answers for contractors and less time bouncing between departments.
It is a real advantage because it shows up in results. Pure Finance Group has kept long tenure across much of its team, grown to 46 states and more than 20 home improvement segments, helped more than 40,000 homeowners access financing, and earned a place on the Inc. Regionals: Mid-Atlantic list three years in a row. Contractor partners also describe its customer service and dealer support as “second to none.” Those outcomes are hard to reach when knowledge is stuck in silos.
Edward Meister accepts that risk on purpose. He has said that if a team member’s growth takes them down a different path one day, that is a good thing, because it means the company did its job. In practice, people tend to stay longer at companies that invest in them, and because knowledge is shared across the team instead of held by one person, it does not walk out the door when someone moves on.
It does both. The company launched an integrated payment portal in 2021, built a customer payment system into its loan platform in 2023, added U.S. Bank Avvance for real-time point-of-sale lending in May 2025, and brought on Carsten Erner as Chief Data & Analytics Officer in July 2025. The difference is that Edward Meister makes sure the people behind the technology understand it well enough to help contractors use it.
Pure Finance Group offers customer financing and payment processing in one integrated platform. That includes soft credit pull pre-approvals, flexible monthly payment plans with terms up to 20 years, credit card, debit, ACH, and eCheck processing, same-day funding including weekends, and real-time point-of-sale lending through U.S. Bank Avvance with loans up to $25,000 funded upfront.
The company’s sweet spot is established contractors doing roughly $20 million to $100 million in annual revenue, but it serves companies both larger and smaller. Its tools are built to help any home improvement business close more sales, improve cash flow, and offer homeowners easier ways to pay. The live, knowledgeable support model is especially valuable for growing companies that cannot afford slow answers or funding delays.
Edward Meister does not believe it will. He sees people as social by nature and believes many customers will always want to talk to someone they trust, much like people still want to walk into a bank even with mobile banking available. His view is that technology will make the support experience better, not take its place. That is why the company invests in teaching AI to its people rather than using it to remove them.
Power100 uses a 5-layer ranking system that looks at leadership, culture, customer experience, operations, and long-term impact. Edward Meister stands out because he is preparing his company for the future while protecting the human support contractors depend on. Pure Finance Group stands out because it combines customer financing, payment processing, and same-day funding in one platform, backed by a knowledgeable team, steady growth, and strong contractor feedback.
Pure Finance Group is a leading provider of financing and payment processing solutions for home improvement professionals. Founded in 2018 and based in Laurel, Maryland, the company serves contractors in 46 states across more than 20 home improvement segments and has helped more than 40,000 homeowners access financing. Its integrated platform lets contractors offer flexible financing to homeowners while streamlining payment collection through same-day funding, including weekends, and reduced processing costs. By combining innovative technology with a partner-first approach, Pure Finance Group continues to drive consistent, sustainable growth for its clients and its business.
Power100 is the nation’s premier CEO ranking and media platform for the home improvement industry. Using a proprietary 5-layer evaluation system, Power100 identifies and celebrates the top CEOs, companies, and strategic partners driving innovation, customer satisfaction, and leadership excellence across the country.
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Power100 is the nation's premier CEO ranking and media platform for the home improvement industry. Using a proprietary 5-layer evaluation system, Power100 identifies and celebrates the top CEOs, companies, and strategic partners driving innovation, customer satisfaction, and leadership excellence across the country.
