As president and CEO for the past seven years, Gregory Teal has transformed Ernst from a publishing and data company to a major industry technology player that provides fully automated fee management solutions to nearly 90% of the industry. Teal’s goal is to identify industry challenges and create solutions to meet those challenges and during the past 12 months, he has led his team successfully through a perfect storm. 

In the past year, Ernst has been met with explosive growth, processing a record high of 250 million transactions through its solutions, which is up more than 100 million from the year prior. In addition, Ernst technology systems underwent a major upgrade. Rapid growth of this type impacts every facet of the business. Ernst not only successfully delivered, its clients never felt an impact and applauded it for excellent service. 

While Ernst’s business volume was growing dramatically, Teal expanded the company’s role in the title fee space, completing two major integrations with national underwriters. The company also instituted a new title liaison program and formally rolled out its custom Settlement Agent Gateway solution, which enables settlement agents to manage their fees in real-time and connect them to their lenders’ systems seamlessly, so that from the very first time the lender quotes a borrower, it does so with 100% accuracy. 

During this time, Ernst was working with many of its clients to become TRID compliant. Ernst continued to work through updated integrations with many LOSs, partner platforms and direct client solutions.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

“My stepfather, Carl R. Ernst, the founder of Ernst Publishing, told me ‘To stay in front of your customers, find out what they need and how to help them and you’ll probably make some money in the process and have a successful company.’”