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Nook empowers credit unions, wealth management firms, and fintechs with AI-driven marketing automation, expert strategy execution, and prebuilt engagement solutions—without the complexity of heavy tech investments or rebranding.
Who We Are
Nook is a trusted partner and certified HubSpot provider, delivering tech-enabled marketing strategy, automation, and execution solutions designed specifically for the financial services industry. As a Credit Union Service Organization (CUSO), we help financial institutions streamline engagement, optimize growth, and build stronger member and customer relationships.
What We Do
We provide a seamless blend of marketing expertise, automation, and industry-driven insights to help our partners:
Automate Smarter
Leverage AI-driven workflows and HubSpot-optimized tools to personalize engagement, centralize data, and drive loyalty.
Execute Faster
Gain access to CMO-level leadership, go-to-market strategists, and marketing execution teams - without the need for a full-time staff.
Engage Deeper
Deliver prebuilt, high-impact vertical member experiences that strengthen relationships without costly custom development.
Why Nook?
Designed for Financial Institutions
We specialize in credit unions, fintechs, and wealth management, ensuring solutions that truly fit your needs.
Industry Expertise, Without the Overhead
Access marketing leadership and execution power on demand.
Scalable, Prebuilt Engagement Solutions
Launch targeted member and customer experiences - without starting from scratch.
Our Mission
At Nook, we believe that technology and strategy should work together to drive engagement, retention, and long-term growth. Through AI-driven automation, data intelligence, and expert marketing execution, we make it easier, faster, and more efficient for financial institutions to connect with their communities.
Nook Executive Team
Austin Wentzlaff is the Co-Founder & CEO of Nook and brings 10+ years of credit union industry, CUSO, and Fintech startup leadership experience.
Prior to starting Nook, Austin was the Founder and CEO of Fintech Accelerator, a consulting firm focused on bringing new technologies to the credit union industry, whose client list included CUSOs, RenoFi and Illuma, among other successful startups. Prior to founding Fintech Accelerator, he was the Chief Revenue Officer overseeing sales and marketing efforts at OnApproach, a CUSO acquired by Trellance in 2019. He has spent the entirety of his career in the credit union industry, where he has worked exclusively for Fintech startups from the earliest stages of growth through exit. Austin has extensive experience working with Fintech startups as an early employee (joining OnApproach, Illuma, and RenoFi all with less than 10 employees) and a key contributor, instrumental in their early success.
Austin is an alumnus of Gustavus Adolphus College, where he received a degree in Financial Economics.
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Mark Portz brings 10+ years of marketing experience with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services, software, and food/beverage industries. Mark has proven skills and results in inbound/content marketing, strategic planning, and event marketing. He recently worked as CMO for OnApproach, driving the inbound marketing strategy and establishing the company as the premier information and analytics solutions provider to credit unions.
He earned Bachelor's Degrees focused on Entrepreneurial Management and Public/Nonprofit Management from the University of Minnesota - Carlson School of Management.
In her role as CSO, Tiffany Niederwerfer works to advance Nook’s mission to bring relationship banking back. She also serves as an extension to credit union executive teams, offering expertise in strategy, brand and content planning, resource assessment, and marcom technology utilization.
Tiffany holds a Bachelors in Journalism and Chief Marketing Officer certification, both from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She brings over 20 years of experience developing and executing growth-driven strategies, primarily in the financial services industry. Before joining Nook, she was Vice President of Marketing for America’s Credit Unions and has held leadership roles at Filene Research Institute and TruStage.
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Paul Ablack is the Co-Founder, Chief Evangalist, and Board Chair of Nook and is also the Founder, CEO, and Chief Investment Officer of Anasazi Holdings, LLC.
Prior to Nook and Anasazi, Paul was the Founder and CEO of OnApproach which developed and patented middleware that enabled credit unions to integrate banking data from disparate systems and then normalize that data to a common standard necessary for analytics, aggregation, and machine learning. OnApproach quickly emerged as the market leader for data integration middleware to the point where the company was acquired in February 2019 by Trellance, Inc., based in Tampa, Florida.
Paul has a passion for business transformation and a track record of success. His experience spans multiple industries, including finance, energy, manufacturing, sensors, software, and for the last ten years, retail banking. He earned a business administration degree with honors from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, where he graduated in 1988.
Our Investors
