Power and Governance: Who Really Owns Credit Unions?

This report casts a wide net to offer critiques of annual meetings, CEO compensation, antidemocratic board renewal policies, hostile mergers, and board perks, all in the service of separating credit union rhetoric from credit union reality.

This governance report, the first in a series of three, encourages directors and leaders of credit unions to lay more than threadbare clichés at the altar of good governance. Through a comprehensive comparison of corporate and credit union governance, it seeks to separate the received wisdom from the effective reality of modern credit union leadership.

The author of this report draws on an exhaustive literature review and decades of firsthand experience to frame each chapter with helpful conclusions, recommendations for credit union boards, and hypotheses that, while not proven, are excellent conversation points for improving governance.

Power and Governance: Who Really Owns Credit Unions? will be followed by two more reports: Boards and CEOs: Who’s Really in Charge? and Boards and Leadership: How Boards Can Add More Value. All three take aim at credit union governance, both the good and the bad, and prescribe real-world responses.

Categorized: 'Leadership'