LAS VEGAS–A CEO who has overseen the rebuilding of the culture at one credit union said the effort has involved doing non-traditional things like not getting the lending department involved in lending projects and having projects led by those who have no experience doing so—and it has worked.

In remarks before NACUSO’s Reimagine Conference as part of “Transformation Thursday,” which is led by Mitchell Stankovic & Associates, Jennifer Oliver, CEO of the $1.2-billion Rize Credit Union in Irwindale, Calif., talked about some of the steps the credit union has taken following a rebranding after she was named CEO in March of 2022. 

Prior to that, Oliver had been EVP with Municipal Credit Union in New York, and before that CEO of South Bay Credit Union and California Bear Credit Union. The 72,500-member credit union had been SCE FCU before changing its name in June of 2024. 

‘Building the Plane’

“We needed to build the culture and the organization,” Oliver said. “We said we are going to build the plane as we’re flying it. That  sounds kind of dangerous but we had this new attitude that we’re going to try things and it’s not all going to work.”

Among the things it tried, was a loan project. The standard approach would be to have the lending team build that out; instead, Oliver tasked the marketing team and branch team to lead the effort.  

“And they had solved the loan problem,” Oliver shared. “They’re the ones dealing with the member and they solved it in a completely different way. That started a mindset that really kept moving forward with our organization. I had to be a creative problem-solver because I came from a small credit union, South Bay Credit Union. (At South Bay) I had the freedom to fail forward fast and to experiment, and that gave me kind of a new moxie.

“I took that same spirit to a four-and-a-half-billion credit union that was under conservatorship (Municipal CU in New York), which is a whole different animal, and then I took it to Rize Credit Union.”

‘Spirit of Innovation’

Oliver said a “spirit of innovation” is something every credit union needs to create, including smaller asset-size CUs.

“I truly believe smaller credit unions have reason to be here. They just need support,” said Oliver. “What I found when I was that I just literally didn’t have resources. I talked with (Liz Winninger, CEO of Xtend) about spinning up project management for smaller credit unions. They just don’t have the time–they’re serving members, they’re cleaning the toilets, they’re taking care of everything. They also don’t necessarily have that ability. That is not something we learned in school. You come in to be a teller and what you see in credit unions is that people get promoted within the organization and don’t necessarily come to the table with those competencies. I do think teaching those competencies is tremendously important.”

Agile Practice Launched

To that end, Oliver said Rize Credit Union has started an agile practice around project management. It does not have a single project manager; instead, everyone within the credit union has the opportunity to lead projects.

“I’m talking anybody, It doesn’t have to be a manager, it doesn’t have to be a director, it doesn’t have to be VP,” said Oliver. “What I found was an organization where everybody was solving problems with this idea. With just executive teams on the projects, it was solved one way. Now that our organization has been doing this for three years we’re starting to see new ways of thinking. We can noiw apply this to other credit unions.”

Oliver said she would like to see such approaches brought to smaller credit union en masse, which she said is the appeal of the Credit Union Shared Service (CUSS) model that is being built out by and championed by Mitchell Stankovic. More information on that initiative is available here https://mitchellstankovic.com/credit-union-shared-services/

‘New Levels of Understanding’

“There have been lots of shared services models, but what makes (CUSS) extra special to me is this idea of C-Suite fractional leadership,” Oliver told the meeting. “You’re bringing new levels of understanding and awareness to the industry that may not have been able to be as a small credit union on your own.”