The CEOs of six CUSOs took to the stage as CU*SOUTH hosted their CU Visionary Conference and Annual Meeting at the Perdido Beach Resort, overlooking the white sandy beaches and crystal blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The theme of the 2016 Visionary Conference was “Burn It Down, Build It Up – Redefining Everything Credit Union”.
“We’re looking ahead towards the next 10-15 years, and asking ourselves, ‘what are the mindsets that we need to burn down in order to rebuild our credit unions to address the needs of our members in 2026 and 2031,” said CU*SOUTH CEO Leo Vaulin. “Members are telling us we need to change the way we engage by becoming better online retailers and being better attuned to what members need at specific moments in their lives. Look at Amazon – they’re always offering highly-tuned product recommendations, and constantly working to improve the speed of delivery. We’re deploying a more open, flexible architecture so that our credit unions can deliver instant offers when a member shops for a big-ticket items or an investment opportunity. And we’re constantly improving the speed of closing the loan or opening the account using the fewest steps possible.”
Randy Karnes, CEO of CU*Answers, and Greg Smith, CEO of CU*NorthWest, joined Vaulin in the conference general session to deliver a message of successful collaboration. “Instead of having a single CUSO serving CUs nationally, we have three CUSOs with three CEOs and three boards all working towards a common mission,” added Vaulin. “We’re encouraging CUs to think along similar models. A recent success story is the rkGoBig CUSO, where six CUs in the Mid-Atlantic region joined to form an operational CUSO around our common core, CU*BASE®. One CU focuses on compliance, another on back office; each one takes a role in serving their partners. It’s a collaboration of equals, and reduces operating costs while improving the quality of the service, without the need to sacrifice any CU’s core identity through mergers. We’re working with other CUs around the country to support the development of similar operational models.”
Joining the CU*BASE core providers at the Visionary Conference were three partner CUSOs: Scott Collins, CEO of Xtend, a managed services provider including call center, back office, marketing, and shared branching; Bret Weekes, CEO of eDOC Innovations, an e-commerce document imaging and digital transaction management developer; and Liz Winninger, CEO of ChatterYak, a social media marketing CUSO.
The conference featured a 4-part general session introducing the Visionary theme, and discussing the solutions being developed within the CUSO network. Twelve breakout sessions gave conference participants an opportunity to dive deeper into topics ranging from “Managing Merger Mania” to “Putting Big Data to Work at Your Credit Union.” A beachside reception gave everyone a chance to network and enjoy the spectacular Gulf sunset. A board roundtable gave credit unions a chance to interact with CU*SOUTH’s Board of Directors and share their priorities with this CU-owned CUSO.