The CEO Forum Group Magazine Business 2023 (1) - Flipbook - Page 39
President & CEO, Alliant Credit Union
Visibility to potential new members drives growth.
We find the best way to get the word out in an
organization like ours is through our partners and
well-known industry influencers. Our highest-profile
partnership involves a household name: Suze Orman.
A few years ago, we partnered with Suze, where
Alliant sponsored her podcast, Women & Money.
The trust that Suze’s followers have in her advice and
the trust she placed in Alliant because of our unique
value proposition is the kind of organic marketing
that has driven significant membership growth.
Talk about your leadership philosophy and
Alliant’s culture.
My leadership philosophy and our culture focus
on putting people first: Our members, employees
and communities. As a non-profit, we are purposedriven and strive to give back. But how do you
define community when you are both national and
digital? The answer is simple: Our communities are
everywhere our members live and work.
“The fundamental difference
between us and a shareholder
value-driven bank is an obsession
with doing what is right for our
members and our ability to do it
in every U.S. state through our alldigital platform.”
Organizing around Alliant’s mission and purpose
is part of building a purpose-driven culture for
our people and partners. Our brand DNA consists
of three elements: savvy, selflessness and socially
responsible. They are the core of our culture, and we
have brought many initiatives to life by putting these
three ideas front and center in our daily business life
through our interactions with one another and our
interactions with members.
“Mentoring...has been a core
part of my professional growth,
and as a leader, I have made it
part of our culture and
continue to make it a priority.”
Leading a purpose-driven organization means
listening to our employees. Recently, we held a series
of discussions around their desires to make an impact
and shared ideas about how we could achieve tangible
change together. We created sustainable funding
for the Alliant Credit Union Foundation to support
these collective community-minded goals. The
Foundation’s primary mission is to expand digital
inclusion and bridge the digital divide as a national
digital institution.
As a digital financial services organization, we see an
opportunity to be part of the solution in modeling and
stimulating digital inclusion. Too many lack access to
broadband, the technology devices they need or the
access to learning development resources necessary
to function in our increasingly digitally reliant society.
I am proud to share that we have forged partnerships
across the country with some of the leading national
digital inclusion leaders, such as Compudopt,
National Digital Inclusion Alliance, Connected
Nation, Digitunity, PCs for People, and EveryOn.
Digital Inclusion matters and all Alliant colleagues
are focused on how we can help make it become a
universal reality.
You have a different model. What was a moment
that you would call transformative in your career
that elevated you to the next level that got you
thinking differently?
Mentoring has made all the difference for me. It has
been a core part of my professional growth, and as a
leader, I have made it part of our culture and continue
to make it a priority.
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