Help for leaders in dealing with today’s top challenges
In a recent informal CUES survey, we asked our audience of credit union leaders, “What keeps you up at night?”
More than half—56 percent—said cyber security. And almost a third (30 percent) said compliance.
Fortunately, credit union leaders are up to the challenge of dealing with their top concerns. One way they’re doing so is by forming and joining credit union service organizations. As we saw over and over as we prepared our CUES on CUSOs content focus for April, credit union leaders leverage CUSOs to drive innovation, run their CUs more efficiently and tap top expertise.
There’s a lot of CUSO-related content available, so let me highlight two pieces.
In the CUES on CUSOs episode of The CUES Podcast, Linda Bodie describes how her work in CUSOs helped start the first-ever remote deposit capture program. Not surprisingly, Bodie’s title is “president/innovator”; she leads $30 million Elements Federal Credit Union, Charleston, W. Va., and is involved with more than one CUSO.
In the CUES on CUSOs article “British Columbian CUs Think Big About Collaboration,” Jody Burk, CEO of $330 million East Kootenay Community Credit Union, Cranbrook, and CUES member Jeff Shewfelt, co-CEO of $1.8 billion G & F Financial Group, a CU in Burnaby, talk about how credit unions in the westernmost part of Canada are working together to develop best practices and processes for all of the participants to follow. Doing so gives them negotiating power with vendors and the ability to share in hiring experts to help.
Education is another way credit union leaders are successfully rising to face marketplace challenges.
Notably, we’ve included an online course—using our new, live-taught, two-way learning technology, Elite Access™ Virtual Classroom—as part of April’s CUES on CUSOs initiative. The Power of Innovation: How to Emulate These CUSOs’ Successes will be a free, two-part class led by experts in CUSO formation and innovation. Also coming to Elite Access in April: How Credit Unions Can Innovate With Fintech.
As I discussed in my last column on CUinsight, leaders need a bird’s eye view of business details. So in addition to courses about how to address specific operational concerns, CUES continues to offer leadership learning that will help CUs rise in the market. Good examples: In July Strategic Innovation Institute will show executives how to embrace change and become innovation agents; in September, CUES School of IT Leadership™ will teach leaders about how to build their IT organizations around market forces, such as cyber security threats and new regulations.
Is your top concern cybersecurity? Compliance? Leadership? Please let me know what’s keeping you awake at night so CUES can better help you.
