CU Finance Products is led and editorially supported by Michael and Emilia Aufmuth, the agency principals who co-founded Elite FI Partners. Their public profiles connect this site’s educational work to named, verifiable leadership.
Leadership relationship
Michael and Emilia provide the Elite FI Partners leadership foundation. CU Finance Products applies their F&I, training, operational, and implementation experience to a credit-union-specific member-protection context.
MD
Author and editorial lead
Michael Dean Aufmuth
Agency Principal, Elite FI Partners
Michael began his automotive career in 1997 in his family’s Tucson dealerships. His experience spans sales, sales management, finance, general management, dealership technology, product programs, and adaptive training. He and Emilia co-founded Elite FI Partners in 2019.
Primary perspective
Program strategy, F&I product programs, adaptive training, dynamic coaching, workflow, and implementation.
Contribution to this site
Michael serves as author and editorial lead, connecting product and program concepts to practical lending, training, technology, and member-education decisions.
Automotive career beginning in 1997
Dealership sales, management, F&I, and general-management experience
Emilia brings more than two decades of professional experience to Elite FI Partners. Her background includes administration, dealership operations, finance, sales, insurance, agency development, partner service, and national program leadership.
Primary perspective
Agency operations, partner service, implementation oversight, administrator relationships, and consistent program execution.
Contribution to this site
Emilia provides operational review, testing whether educational guidance accounts for responsibilities, handoffs, member support, documentation, escalation, and sustainable execution.
Professional career beginning in 1998
Dealership operations, finance, sales, and insurance experience
How Elite FI Partners connects to CU Finance Products.
Elite FI Partners provides the broader F&I product, operations, implementation, training, and coaching foundation. CU Finance Products narrows that experience to member education, voluntary choice, direct and indirect credit-union lending, post-closing support, provider oversight, and credit-union governance.
Long-form resources identify who wrote the material and who reviewed its operational implications. That attribution supports transparency while preserving clear limits around the type of guidance provided.
01 · Author perspective
Frame the member, product, lending, workflow, training, and governance question in practical terms.
02 · Operational review
Challenge assumptions about ownership, documentation, servicing, cancellations, refunds, escalation, and execution.
03 · Source and scope review
Use current primary sources where appropriate and distinguish general education from facts that require institution-specific verification.
04 · Published boundaries
State clearly that credit-union legal, compliance, risk, security, product, provider, and governance review still controls.