MADISON, Wis.— Most credit unions have ambitious growth strategies for 2027 and beyond, but many are missing a crucial element: leaders with the capacity and skills to execute those plans, one expert contends.
Jerry Saalsaa, senior vice president and chief operating officer at CUES, a leadership‑development organization serving credit unions, sees a potential disconnect between credit unions’ strategic ambition and organizational readiness. Strategic planning, he said, must incorporate leadership development.
“A credit union can identify an attractive market, invest in technology, open a new channel, pursue a partnership, or set an ambitious membership target,” Saalsa stated. “But somebody still has to lead the organization through the decisions and changes required to make that strategy work.”
Saalsaa’s comments appear here as part of The CU Daily’s series on “The Growth Imperative,” which is currently focusing on strategic planning. His thoughts are below.
The CU Daily: What did you hear primarily from your clients/member CUs during 2026? Did anything come as a surprise?
Saalsaa: One of the clearest things we heard in 2026 was that credit unions are looking for greater clarity: What does strong leadership require today? Where are our gaps? Who is ready for what comes next? And how do we connect development more directly to the challenges our organizations are trying to solve?
We heard a lot about leadership continuity, changing workforce expectations, board effectiveness, AI and technology, and the need to lead through increasingly complex change. While these themes aren’t new, what stood out was how interconnected those issues have become. A technology decision is also a talent decision; a growth strategy is also a leadership capacity decision, etc.
To us, it reinforced that credit unions need clear and consistent pathways for developing leaders across the organization.
The CU Daily: If you could put one item on the agenda for strategic planning meetings this fall, what would it be?
Saalsaa: We would put leadership readiness on the agenda and ask leaders one question: What leadership capabilities will this strategy require, and are we intentionally building them now?
Strategic plans tend to focus heavily on markets, technology, financial performance, products, and growth. All those things matter, but execution ultimately depends on people. If a strategy requires greater innovation, stronger cross-functional collaboration, better change leadership, more sophisticated technology oversight, or a different relationship between the board and management, those capabilities can’t be developed after the strategy is already underway. Leadership development should be part of strategic planning (not an activity that follows it).
The CU Daily: Is growth an issue or discussion point on either your end or that of credit unions? What are the conversations about? What is misunderstood about growth? What do you consider the most important growth metric to watch?
Saalsaa: Absolutely, on both ends. But it’s important to make the distinction that growth itself is not a strategy. The more productive conversation is: What kind of growth strengthens the credit union’s ability to fulfill its mission over the long term?
For credit unions, we hear conversations about membership, deposits, lending, new markets, partnerships, technology, talent, and mergers. But sustainable growth requires those pieces to work together. An organization can become larger without necessarily becoming stronger.
From a leadership perspective, we believe growth also requires capacity. Can the organization lead the change that growth creates? Does it have the talent, culture, governance, and operating discipline to support where it wants to go?
Rather than focusing on one raw number, we would pay close attention to whether growth is producing deeper, sustainable relationships with the people the organization serves. For a credit union, that means looking beyond total membership to active engagement and the depth of the member relationship. For CUES, similarly, growth is about whether our members are actively using our products and programs to develop themselves and strengthen their organizations.
The CU Daily: Where does growth fit into CUES’ programming and educational offerings?
Saalsaa: Growth is fundamentally a leadership issue, which makes it very relevant to CUES.
A credit union can identify an attractive market, invest in technology, open a new channel, pursue a partnership, or set an ambitious membership target. But somebody still has to lead the organization through the decisions and changes required to make that strategy work.
Our role is not to prescribe one growth strategy for every credit union, but rather to develop leaders who can evaluate opportunities, make sound strategic decisions, build organizational alignment, manage change, develop talent, and maintain the connection between growth and mission.
That is also why we prefer the idea of mission-centric growth. Growth should strengthen a credit union’s ability to serve members and remain sustainable over the long term. It shouldn’t simply make the organization bigger.
Our 2027 programming will continue exploring that intersection among strategy, innovation, talent, partnerships, leadership, and sustainable growth.
The CU Daily: Where will your focus be in 202
Saalsaa: The end of this year marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for CUES. We’ve been working on a major initiative that represents a significant step forward in leadership development for the credit union movement. It’s a direct response to what we’ve been hearing from members about the challenges they face and the support they need. We’ll have much more to share soon. We’re looking forward to introducing it to the industry and building on that momentum throughout 2027.
At the same time, governance remains a major priority, particularly helping boards operate effectively as technology, strategy, risk, and organizational change become increasingly complex. We’ll also continue addressing the leadership implications of growth, AI, and succession. The common thread is helping credit unions build the leadership capabilities to navigate change and turn strategy into results.
2027 promises to be an important year for CUES and, more importantly, for the leaders and organizations we serve.
The CU Daily: How has your focus evolved over the past few years?
Saalsaa: CUES has always been about developing credit union leaders.
Historically, an individual might come to CUES for a particular event, course, designation, or experience. Those remain extremely important, but members are increasingly asking for a clearer pathway: Where am I today? What capabilities will I need next? What development will help me get there? And how does all of that connect to what my credit union needs?
That is a significant evolution. We are moving from thinking only in terms of individual educational offerings toward an interconnected leadership-development ecosystem—one that can support an individual leader, a team, or an entire organization over time.
The CU Daily: How do you monitor what’s taking place in the fintech space?
Saalsaa: We look at fintech primarily through the lens of what it means for credit union leadership.
Our CUES members provide an important source of insight because we hear directly about what credit unions are evaluating, adopting, questioning, and struggling with. We also draw on university faculty, industry partners, speakers, subject-matter experts, and the conversations taking place throughout our events and communities.
We’re primarily interested in understanding the implications of technology. For example: What does a new technology mean for strategy? Governance? Talent? Risk? Member expectations? What questions should executives and directors be asking?
CUES is proud to help leaders develop the judgment and capabilities to make good decisions as the technology changes.
The CU Daily: Where have you found room to squeeze out costs?
Saalsaa: We have focused on efficiency over the last year. That means looking for duplication in processes, concentrating resources in the channels and offerings our members use most, and using technology to reduce manual work where it makes sense.
The CU Daily: CUES is close to its membership. What do you hear from them about career development? Are there concerns about their careers?
Saalsaa: Career paths are less linear than they once were, and leadership roles themselves have become broader. Being technically excellent in one function does not necessarily prepare someone to lead across an organization. Emerging and experienced leaders alike want to know what capabilities they need to build, where they have blind spots, and how they can prepare for a role that may look very different five years from now.
For credit unions, that creates a parallel concern: How do they retain talented people, give them meaningful development opportunities, and build a strong enough bench that the organization is not vulnerable when someone leaves or retires?
That is part of why clearer development pathways are becoming so important. People want more than training opportunities; they want to understand how development connects to their career and their impact.
The CU Daily: CUES partners with a number of well-known university management programs in its educational offerings. Describe the input they provide to CUES’ offerings. What sorts of broader management trends have they highlighted or flagged that have influenced CUES’ educational offerings?
Saalsaa: One of the greatest benefits of our university partnerships is that they bring perspectives from well beyond financial services into the credit union movement.
Through partners including Wharton, Cornell, Darden, and Rotman, our members are learning from faculty who study organizations, strategy, leadership, change, governance, negotiation, technology, and human behavior across industries. CUES brings the credit union context, and our university partners bring research and management thinking that helps leaders challenge assumptions and see their organizations differently.
That combination is important. Credit unions have unique missions and business models, but many of the leadership challenges they face—leading change, making decisions under uncertainty, building effective teams, navigating technology disruption, strengthening governance, and aligning strategy with execution—are broader management challenges.
You can see that evolution in the curricula today. Technology oversight, AI readiness, data governance, cybersecurity, organizational effectiveness, change leadership, scenario planning, and strategic decision-making have all become increasingly important alongside the foundational disciplines of leadership and management.
The CU Daily: AI has transformed undergraduate education for a new generation. What role is it playing in CUES’ educational offerings? What do you see ahead? Do we have a future in which CU leaders need to be as adept at managing AI as they do human teams?
Saalsaa: AI is beginning to affect leadership education in two ways: what leaders need to learn and how learning itself is delivered.
CUES is already using AI-assisted technology to personalize learning recommendations for members, and our work with AWS is helping us continue moving toward a more customized development experience.
At the same time, AI increasingly belongs in the leadership conversation itself. Executives and directors need to understand enough about AI to make decisions about strategy, investment, risk, governance, talent, and member experience.
I wouldn’t say leaders will “manage AI” exactly as they manage people. But they will increasingly manage organizations in which work is performed by a combination of people, technology, data, and AI. That requires a new level of judgment.
The strongest leaders will understand both sides of that equation: how to get value from the technology and how to lead people through the changes it creates.
–Reporting by Anne Battle Schultz
