“Our focus is on who we serve and how we serve them. That is what has made us successful.” - Bill Cheney
Welcome to episode 45 The CUInsight Experience with your host Randy Smith, co-founder of CUInsight.com. In this episode, Randy welcomes Bill Cheney, the President, and CEO of the SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union. They are taping this episode from Mombasa, Kenya, where Bill was the keynote speaker at the 20th SACCA Congress.
Bill speaks to us about how SchoolsFirst gives back to their local community and their global community. He shares some of the ways his team has contributed to schools in Kenya. Bill also talks about his team’s focus on having empathy and understanding the communities and how to serve them best.
They discuss Bill’s servant leadership style and why he left CUNA to head SchoolsFirst. He chats about being glad to be back at an actual person credit union, and he feels like he has come full circle. Bill believes that who they serve and how they serve them is what has made SchoolsFirst successful. He believes that the people in your organization are essential, he says you can’t expect people to work like machines and you can’t treat them like machines.
Listen in as Bill tells us why there has never been a better time to work in the credit union movement, how the members are the marker of success in any credit union and why they need to make more loans to more members. This is a great conversation from a beautiful place with essential information that you won’t want to miss, so plugin and enjoy.
View full show notes on CUInsight.com.
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How to find Bill:
Bill Cheney, President and CEO at SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union
www.schoolsfirstfcu.org
bill.cheney@schoolsfirstfcu.org
Linkedin | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
In this episode:
[01:48] - Bill, welcome to the show!
[02:09] - They discuss the conference and Bill’s keynote speech.
[03:27] - Bill tells us how and why his team at the credit union gives back to the local and global communities.
[07:06] - Empathy is front and center of SchoolsFirst Credit Union; they try to understand their communities and the best way to serve them.
[08:49] - How has your experience at the state and national level helped you run SchoolsFirst?
[10:02] - Bill speaks about his wife and how credit unions have become their life and how hard it is to turn it off.
[12:07] - Who we serve and how we serve them is what has made SchoolsFirst successful.
[14:25] - He discusses the investment in technology that they have made to increase support to their members.
[15:11] - What needs to change fundamentally to keep credit unions relevant?
[17:02] - Bill tells us why he left CUNA to take the job at SchoolsFirst.
[20:18] - Has the inspiration after five years on the job changed or gotten stronger?
[21:57] - Bill says servant leadership is how he describes his leadership style.
[24:14] - Has your leadership style changed since your career started?
[28:20] -