CUES Podcast

Tyler Leet takes credit union cybersecurity very seriously. For him, it’s not just a job. It’s a duty.

“We have an obligation,” says Leet, director of risk and compliance services for the regulatory compliance group at CSI, Paducah, Kentucky, the sponsor of the latest episode of the CUES Podcast. “Businesses have an obligation, credit unions have an obligation to keep their members secure, their data secure, their money secure.”

In this show, Leet shares his 20 years of experience in information security, risk and compliance by describing best practices in “going on offense” to defend your credit union and the data it generates against hackers. These best practices include knowing:

• The key differences between “vulnerability assessments” and “penetration testing” as well as between “compliance” and “security” 
• The value of assessments and tests—and how to put each in context
• How to build a well-balanced cybersecurity program

Leet urges credit unions to not be afraid of the results they might get from doing vulnerability assessments and penetration tests—even though it might be disappointing to find holes in your defenses against cyberattacks.

“It’s a learning exercise,” he explains. “I mean you’re looking to improve. It's not about just making the document to make examiners happy. It’s: ‘What are we figuring out along the way? What insights are we gaining into our organization?’”

Leet also reminds every listener that they contribute to overall organizational security, even if they’re not in IT:

“You are an end user, whether you’re a teller or a loan officer or an executive,” he says. “You have access to systems, and you are a potential target. You are a potential avenue into that network and can make a mistake that could cost your organization. So, while you’re not expected to be a security expert, you can learn basics about good security hygiene and to avoid being one of the reasons your organization gets compromised.”

Links for this show:

• CSI
• More great content on cybersecurity from CU Management magazine
• Transcript

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations are central to the corporate social responsibility program for $8 billion United Nations Federal Credit Union, New York.

These goals such things as living wages, clean water, ending poverty and empowering women and girls, explains Yma Gordon in this episode of the CUES Podcast. Gordon is VP/Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact for UNFCU and the Executive Director of the UNFCU Foundation. 

“Credit unions are known to have purpose,” Gordon says. “And so for us, it's about really living that value to put people, planet and prosperity ahead of profit.”

Gordon makes an important distinction between “CSR” and another common buzzword, “ESG”—or environmental, social, governance. 

To Gordon, CSR has to do with the work of delivering on the mission of its members—employees of the United Nations—to leave the world a better place. So that includes “our collective action, our policy, our investments,” work done both internally and externally.

“Corporate social responsibility is an extension for us of our mission to serve the people who serve the world, and that we first of all hold up sustainability, for example, as a value,” she explains. “And so for us, that means really conducting business as a good corporate citizen. That's important to us.”

In contrast, Gordon says, ESG is more about measuring the work of CSR. 

“It is how we see that our stakeholders can understand, rate and score our risk and value of the work … that we're doing in terms of CSR,” she says. “Increasing in our ESG journey makes total sense in terms of the (overall) journey that we're on.”

The show also gets into:

• the history of UNFCU’s CSR program
• the work of the UNFCU Foundation
• how the United in Sustainability Network supports other credit unions in their efforts
• UNFCU’s sustainability-minded product offerings
• what’s next for UNFCU’s CSR work

Links for this show:

• Transcript
• United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
• UN Global Compact Action Manager (free assessment tool)
• United in Sustainability Network
• United in Sustainability Summit
• Get added to the United in Sustainability email list or ask a question about UIS 
• United in Sustainability on LinkedIn
• ABCs of ESG whitepaper

In this episode of the CUES Podcast, Alex Johnson underscores the idea that knowledge is power when it comes to credit unions' success in understanding and making decisions about fintech. The creator and author of the Fintech Takes newsletter, Johnson describes ways credit union leaders can track trends in fintech and even recommends several of his favorite fintech resources. 

In the show, Johnson also emphasizes the importance of credit unions staying strategic as they contemplate fintech and how to engage with it.

“I think when you’re trying to decide … what’s hyped or overhyped or maybe not hyped up enough, … it needs to be done through the lens of … who are members or customers and what problems are we trying to solve for them? And how does this technology contribute to that goal?” he says.

“We don’t have unlimited resources to throw at this stuff,” he adds. “We don’t have an unlimitedly large technology staff or sometimes any technology staff at all. We don’t have a huge budget for this stuff. And so you do have to pick your spots very carefully."

In the show, Johnson uses P2P, digital account opening and chatbots like ChatGPT as examples of technology that might be super interesting to credit union leaders. And yet, he says, sorting out where to spend your time in fintech must be driven more by member needs than by a keen interest in any particular technology or a desire to keep up with a competitor.

“If you ever find yourself making a decision around technology or fintech that is in any way motivated by a feeling of, ‘We’re missing out, oh, it’s embarrassing that we don’t have this and our peers do,’ that’s just a terrible motivation,” he says in the show. “And I would try almost to sort of train your brain to recognize that motivation because it’s very natural, and it creeps in that drives all of our decision-making all the time. But to the degree you can identify and sort of stamp out that motivation when making these decisions, I think that’ll help in focusing on the things that really are strategically the most important.”

The show also gets into

• Fintech trends Johnson recommends credit unions follow most closely
• The value of looking to solve members problems in “financial services-adjacent” spaces
• Whether credit unions should be partnering with fintech companies

Links for this show

• Transcript
• Fintech Takes by Alex Johnson
• What 4 Wildly Optimistic Visions of P2P Tell Us About the Future of Moving Money
• CUESolutions provider Cornerstone Advisors‘ report, “What’s Going on in Banking?”
• Andreeson Horowitz fintech newsletter
• Fintech Business Weekly podcast by Jason Mikula
• This Week in Fintech newsletter
• CEO Institute: Fintech, prework due March 21, in-person event April 17-20 in New York
• CEO Dialogue, a place to get perspective on financial service-adjacent spaces

This episode of the CUES Podcast covers the key connection between skilled and authentic leadership and management and organizational and employee well-being.

“This is really what we need to focus on ... as leaders and as organizations,” says guest Laurie Maddalena, MBA, CSP, CPCC, CEO of Envision Excellence. “How do we support the well-being of our cultures and create cultures that cultivate well-being and also well-being for our employees in their personal lives? 

In the show, Maddalena offers these concrete steps to take: 

• Audit your culture. Is what’s in practice what you say it should be? 
• Assess the quality of the work of your leaders and managers. Are they modeling the behaviors you want to be part of your culture? (eg, Are they constantly connected?)  
• Know your business model. This will help you determine which ways you can offer flexible work and to which employees. 
• Root out such traditional and unhealthy leadership practices. Micromanaging, not giving feedback, reprimanding rather than coaching, and not investing in an employee’s growth may have worked 30 years ago, but they don’t anymore, Maddalena says. 
• Stop promoting people into managerial and leadership roles based on excellent technical skills and/or tenure. Also, prepare potential managers and leaders for managing and leading long before you promote them into such a role.

Maddalena says making sure the right people are managing and leading “is a place that executives and CEOs can really shift your culture.”  

“It doesn't happen overnight, obviously, and it's really a slow shift, but (you) can accelerate it if you make sure that you're evaluating your management quality,” Maddalena explains. “That is the biggest piece in my mind of creating a great culture, keeping your employees engaged, keeping your talent and creating this sense of well-being. 

“And all of these challenges and the complexities that come with leadership will become easier because you have people in place who ... really understand it at the fundamental level of why this is important,” she adds. 

The show also gets into: 

• how to know which of your team members can develop into good leaders and managers 
• whether leadership and management ability is innate or whether it can be taught 
• The constant evolution of leadership 

Links for this episode:

• Laurie Maddalena has hosted CUES’ RealTalk! Programs 
• Maddalena and her team have provided coaching for the CUES Emerge program 
• Get Maddalena's Beware of Compare Reframing Tool  (free with registration)
• Find Maddalena on LinkedIn 
• In the episode, Maddalena recommended all of Ryan Holiday's books, especially Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave and Discipline Is Destiny  
• Check out a related CUES video: Level-Setting Expectations for Yourself and Others 

Bruce Bauer understands how credit unions sometimes push establishing a charitable donation account down on their list of priorities. But Bauer, an executive benefits specialist with CUESolutions provider Cuna Mutual Group, rather wishes they wouldn’t. 

In this episode, Bauer explains that credit unions that have charitable donation accounts can get additional revenue from the same budget line item for their philanthropy. That’s because CDAs allow them more investment flexibility (and potentially more return) both on the dollars they plan to donate plus a specific amount of additional funds.

In the show, Bauer details the rules and regulations the National Credit Union Administration has in place to govern credit unions’ use of CDAs. He also talks about some cool successes in charitable giving that have been facilitated by the use of one of these accounts. 

In all, Bauer thinks using a charitable donation account is something every credit union should at least consider, as it can set them up for a triple win—to “help charities in their communities, help the credit union brand and help credit unions dominate the community banking space.” 

Links for this episode: 

• Transcript
• How to Make Charitable Donation Dollars Work Harder by Cuna Mutual Group 
• Charitable donation accounts through Cuna Mutual Group 
• CUES Symposium 

CUES member Jeff Disterhoft became passionate about advancing diversity, equity and inclusion after his son took a class about race at the University of Iowa and started asking his dad questions about DEI.

“A few things became clear over the course of the semester,” Disterhoft says in the show. “One, I didn't have it all figured out in terms of the systemic oppression of people of color in our country for hundreds of years. Two, I had a lot of unconscious biases that had not been properly addressed. And three, I could do more as an individual, and I felt like GreenState could do more as an organization.”

DIsterhoft is president/CEO of $11 billion GreenState Credit Union, North Liberty, Iowa, the recipient of CUES’ 2022 DEI: Catalyst for Change Award.

With its CEO and board both passionate about DEI, GreenState CU launched last year a 10-year initiative to help close Iowa's racial homeownership gap, which ranks sixth largest in the nation. The goal is to fund more than a billion dollars in mortgage loans to people of color in the communities GreenState CU serves. The CU also has committed 10% of its assets over the next decade to support home lending to people of color in the state of Iowa.

“To date, we're about $275 million in not quite the first two years and so we're in a good spot today,” Disterhoft says. “But I don't want to just rest on those laurels. We're actually encouraging other credit unions, at least right now anyway, in the state of Iowa, to join us in that effort."

GreenState CU established its emergent bilingual strategy back in 2020. The goal at that time was to address financial disparities and earn the trust of bilingual communities.

“Taking better care of the Latino community is, I think one of those rare intersections where doing right also intersects with doing  good business,” Disterhoft says. “In other words, it's, it's right for those communities that may have been historically marginalized. But those are also growing communities, and so that's good for our business.”

Listen to the episode for the full story about why Disterhoft is passionate about DEI, plus more details of his credit union’s programs and his advice for other credit unions on their DEI journeys.

Links for this episode:

• Transcript
• CUES awards
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Cornell Certificate Program
• DEI content on CUmanagement.com
• CUES DEI Resource Center

If you're building a team, you want players who are humble, hungry and people-smart. Zachary Churchill says this is not his idea—it's from Patrick Lencioni, founder of The Table Group—but Churchill seems not only to espouse it but embody it. 

The winner of the 2022 CUES Emerge competition, Churchill is not afraid to say he previously entered the competition in 2013 and didn't advance. So that's pretty humble.

“For me, ego is the obstacle to personal progress,” says Churchill, CUDE, CMA, CFE, CCM, in the show. “I tend to think my way is good enough, so why change? But the truth is, we’re not going to change unless we want something bad enough or the pain of doing things the way it is now, that status quo, hurts enough. ... I desperately wanted to do a great job in this year’s competition. And that meant I had to let go of my ego ... and just do things the way that the experts advised me.”

Churchill is hungry, too, interested in learning and growing—to the point where he would like to become a credit union CEO one day. He's already been sharing everything he learns about leadership with other leaders and staffers at his credit union. 

As for people smart? There are lots of examples of this in the show, including how Churchill showed how his business case about building an analytics team was really all about people.

“A key learning that I took away from the CUES Emerge program came from one of our speakers who said, ‘Humans are wired for story,’” he says. “... as someone on the finance side of the business, I just figured that data and facts will win the day. ... But that just isn’t how we're hardwired as a species. And so, if telling stories matters, then we need to find the story. ... And so, I really had to think about, ‘How could I translate this sort of abstract concept into something concrete?’

“I'm like, ‘How do I bring this alive?’ ... And then finally, I stumbled across the example of our member, Mrs. Rose ... the idea of her situation and how we could help her ... What is more powerful, if I said, ‘There's strong financial and member benefits to implementing my proposal,’ or ‘We can transform the lives of our members through data? Let me tell you about Mrs. Rose’?”

Churchill gets into lots of other great topics in this episode, including his experience with the CUES Emerge program; a sketch of his CUES Emerge business case; advice for writing a solid business case and building a winning online presentation; ideas on how to be more receptive to feedback.

He also offers advice for up-and-coming credit union leaders.

“I’d say step out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself. ... The great things in life, they just don’t come easy. And you don't know how much potential you have until you test yourself and see what are you capable of. What are your limits? So, give things a shot, try and get involved.”

Links for this show: 

• CUESolutions provider Strategic Resource Management (SRM), show sponsor 
• CUES Emerge program: finalists, pitches and more
• CUES Virtual Classroom, free to members 
• Churchill’s prize is an educational package that includes registration to CUES Advanced Management Program 

Episode 137 of the CUES Podcast tells a story of CEO succession that includes two leaders splitting the president and CEO roles for about six months;  doing additional planning for the expected retirements of the longtime CFO and CIO; consideration of several merger options; and a merger. 

This is the story of Charlotte Metro Credit Union, which just as we were about to publish this episode announced its new name will be Skyla Credit Union. Our guests for this episode are CUES member Bob Bruns, retiring president/CEO, and Eric Gelly, incoming president/CEO for the $1 billion institution in North Carolina.

“It was quite a learning experience for our board to be very open-minded about what the options were,” in terms of choosing a new CEO and leadership team through either a recruitment process or a merger, Bruns says in the show. In the end, the board decided to hire Gelly and merge with a credit union of similar size, Premier Federal Credit Union, Greensboro, North Carolina. 

Gelly describes the handoff from Bruns as very well done. 

“I've compared it before to it’s almost like he had a dimmer switch,” Gelly says. “And he was making the light brighter on me and reducing the light on him and doing it in such a well-orchestrated way that I didn't really notice until we got through the process that he had handed everything essentially over to me.” 

Gelly talks in the show about how all these big changes were communicated to staff in a way that helped secure their buy-in. 

“We drove home what we were trying to build with, we call it, the new credit union,” he explains. “And the whys of bringing our two very healthy and strong, thriving credit unions together. And what we would have with that achieved scale. 

"The staff really bought into what we were building and the rationale for why we were doing," he adds. "Both shops, being in that 300 million to 500 million size, know the frustrations of that no-man's land. So, the concept of being larger, more robust, eliminating some redundant expenses, and in turn, just … serving our members to the best way that we possibly can. 

“They bought into it, and they believed in it,” he says. "And they’re very excited about the credit union that we've put together.” 

The show also gets into: 

• The impact the pandemic had on this transition 
• Why and how having co-leaders worked so well in this transition 
• How leaders can leave a legacy by facilitating succession planning 
• The economy of scale that can be gained from merging 
• The value of open-mindedness about big decisions as part of the learning process  
• The value of dialog among leaders, such as at CUES Symposium 

Links for this show: 

• Transcript
• CUES Symposium 
• Our commercial sponsor CSI 
• Podcast 130: Mergers Have ‘Roots and Wings’ 
• Podcast 117: Merge for the Right Reasons 

Sponsored by SkyStem

Closing the books at the end of the month can be a lot of work. Doing it month after month can be grueling. And when the organization is growing and adding new technology, well, that can just make an already tough job that much more difficult, says our guest in this episode of the CUES Podcast.

Jennifer Stein, CPA, CGMA, is senior project manager for SkyStem, a CUES Supplier member based in New York City and the sponsor of this show. A former corporate controller, Stein has been through the ups and downs of the month-end close many times, and that experience has driven her passion for making the process easier for accounting teams.

Her top tip? Standardize the process. This is especially helpful during this era of turnover caused by the Great Resignation, she says.

“By standardizing your processes and your reconciliation templates, for example, you’re helping new people learn the exact same way that other people are doing things,” she says in the show. “So, by having standardization in process and templates or forms, not only are you … teaching these people the best way to do what you’re doing, but also helping on the flip side, the reviewer who’s reviewing these things, because they’re used to the same format. If you were to give three new employees three different blank spreadsheets and say here, go reconcile … prepaid insurance, you’re going to get three different-looking reconciliations back. So, it helps on both sides.”

In the show, Stein also talks about the importance of leaders setting the pathway then designing and fine-tuning the process and aligning technology that can assist.

What does Stein think the future looks like for accounting professionals? Her answer is about digitization and digital skills. 

She recommends accountants be willing to grow their skill set in the digital area, how it “can complement and amplify what you’re already doing.”

“It just goes beyond debits and credits,” she says. “It’s about being able to maximize and leverage what you have to make your job easier and less stressful.”

Links for this show:

• CUES Supplier member SkyStem
• CUES Supplier Member Directory
• Accounting Teams: Effectively Handle the Growing Demands of Month-End Close by Ally Mason
• SkyStem’s Month-End Close Solution: ART
• SkyStem CPE webinars  (free with registration)

Got grit? 

According to the guest in this episode of the CUES Podcast, getting grit is about having passion and perseverance in pursuit of long-term goals. It’s about going outside of your comfort zone and taking risks to live your best life. As a bonus, the process of getting grit will likely inspire other people to want to behave that way as well. 

“Grit is really defined also by the fact that these are your goals, your unique goals that you want to accomplish,” explains Caroline Adams Miller, author of the books Getting Grit and Creating Your Best Life. “And why is that? Because it's this passion, this inner passion that keeps you going when the going gets tough. And if it's someone else's goal, you're not going to have that. So it has to be your why not someone else's why. 

“People have what I call authentic grit simply by virtue of how they live and how they do hard things,” continues Miller, who will present a keynote about grit at Directors Conference, slated for Dec. 4-7 in Las Vegas. On the other hand, it’s a good idea to try to avoid having what Miller dubs “stupid” grit. 

“Stupid grit is marked by arrogance and a lack of humility,” Miller explains in the show. “Stupid grit is when conditions have changed and you refuse to take in information or data from the environment or other people that would caution you to change course or think a little bit differently about how to behave.” 

Fortunately, authentic grit is contagious. Miller tells in the show about how West Point roomed cadets with somewhat lower grit scores with cadets with higher grit scores. Over time, the overall grit scores went up. 

It’s a great idea to embed people with the qualities of authentic grit “into your organization, on your team, in your school environment, in your family because we know that simply observing and being around it .. has that effect of elevating and uplifting other people's behaviors,” she says. 

The show also gets into: 

• Selfie grit and faux grit 
• The dangers of having raised a “self-esteem” generation 
• Who does not need to develop more grit 

Links for this show:

• Transcript
• Directors Conference 
• Books by Caroline Adams Miller, including Getting Grit 
• More content from Directors Conference speakers
  • Video: Five Things Boards Need to Know About Data Governance 
  • If You’re Not Thinking About Next-Generation Board Leadership, You Should Be