ProLife Bank CEO Fired for His Faith by Fortune 500 Company, Now in Business of Honoring God

The CEO of a brand new online banking company that was established to support pro-life efforts is opening up about how he was fired from his previous employer because his conservative Christian values didn't "line up" with the company's LGBTQ agenda.

Russ Salerno is the CEO of ProLifeFintech, an institution that will "honor God first, serve the people who use our fintech platform, and always choose to support life…All life," according to its website.

The online financial institution, which officially opens in March, plans to give 50 percent of its net profits to Judeo-Christian-aligned nonprofit organizations. 

It is an option that Salerno did not have several years ago. 

"God sovereignly placed me on a journey in the banking industry to show Himself to me," he recently shared on X. "He has truly done that! After spending years in the lion's den of major banks I accepted the role as CEO of ProLifeFinTech in July."

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God sovereignly placed me on a journey in the banking industry to show Himself to me. He has truly done that! After spending years in the lion’s den of major banks I accepted the role as CEO of https://t.co/bVfugVumrC in July and I am excited to share with you that our doors are… pic.twitter.com/7fVvPCBDz1

— Russ Salerno(@russsalerno) November 30, 2024

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Signal, Salerno shared more about his journey.

It began when he was interrogated by the human resource department of a Fortune 500 company after releasing a personal podcast episode with his wife criticizing Drag Queen Story Hour. 

"They just pressed me and made me make the statement," he recalled. "'So, tell us about your podcast, Russ.' And so, I did that."

Salerno and his wife host "The Winding Road Home," where they discuss news of the day through a biblical lens.

"They let me know that the views expressed on my show do not line up with the core values of this particular bank," he recalled.

"They asked me to basically shut my show down," Salerno continued. "At that point, I stood up and told them they're infringing on my constitutional right of free speech."

"So, what's wrong about my show? As it turns out, there's a particular moral value that God puts out there in the Ten Commandments," Salerno told the outlet.

He added, "To me, it doesn't really matter who you are and what you believe, it just isn't proper for anyone to read sex stories or cartoons that are sex stories masked in cartoons to little kids... That's really the gist of what we said on the show. It's like, 'Look, this is what God's word says about sexual immorality.'"

Nearly six months after that meeting, Salerno had a performance review with his boss. During that meeting, the review of his performance went well.

As a follow-up, he says he asked "what I could do to advance my career at this institution."

"My manager informed me that if I joined the Ally Network, I could learn about more people who are not like me," Salerno recalls.

That Ally network was a group for people who considered themselves "allies" of the LGBTQ movement. 

Salerno pushed back at his manager's suggestion of joining a group to advance his career. 

"I basically told her that I felt like the organization did not have a place for Christians in their [diversity] program," he recalled. "I felt like the place was toxic and I asked her never to speak to me in that tone or manner again because I should be treated fairly, just like everyone else."

"About 30 days after that conversation, I got a knock on the door and basically they told me my role was eliminated," he shared noting that he had just taken on more responsibility as the head of ATM strategy. 

"They basically gave me three weeks to find a new job," Salerno said. "I knew within about 48 hours that I was blackballed because people I know that would normally talk to me wouldn't talk to me."

Salerno told the outlet that he stumbled upon evidence that his termination was discrimination-based. He later filed a lawsuit against his employer with the help of the Alliance Defending Freedom, a non-profit legal group.

The bank agreed to settle with Salerno, but as part of the settlement he is not allowed to disclose the name of his former employer. 

The bank tried to get him to sign what amounted to a gag order, but he refused saying, "You can't take my testimony."

Salerno notes that he experienced God's sovereignty through the ordeal when he met his future business partners. 

David and Jason Benham, Christian speakers and writers, known as the "Benham Brothers" introduced him to to Nick Vujicic, who was formulating the idea of starting a faith-friendly financial institution after being kicked out of his bank. 

As CBN News reported, it started when Vujicic gave an interview in March 2019 in which he spoke out against the killing of innocent, unborn babies. "Within 16 weeks of doing that," he revealed, "we had a grenade at our house, a false magazine article published against me, a lawsuit threat, a spying drone, and a bank kicked me out."

"They froze my credit cards, froze my debit cards," he said. "They gave me a letter to say that they did a review of me as a client and they don't want anything to do with me."

Vujicic decided to establish his own bank with the help of his good friend Betsy Gray who has an extensive financial background.

MORE: Nick Vujicic's 'Faith-Based' Pro-Life Bank to Open This Coming Spring Online

Salerno, Vujicic, and Gray have successfully worked to give people a better option for their money. 

In November, they launched their banking services in all 50 states and have plans to go global.

"You got to know, and I just know from being in the industry, all these major banks, they don't love the Lord," Salerno told the Daily Signal. "That's the affinity play at ProLifeFintech. We love the Lord. We love life from cradle to grave, and we're going to honor God by serving our customers and treating them like God would want them to be treated: fairly, [and] give them good rates of return."

To find out more about ProLifeFintech Bank, click here.