Speaking and Strategy

Curated from Filene’s cutting-edge research and innovation, each speaking topic will provide actionable outcomes with immediate impact. ​Topics represent the most often requested and relevant discussions shared by the credit union system today.

Speaking topics can be delivered virtually or in-person.

Speaking Topics

1. Executing in an Everything, Everywhere, All at Once World
2. Solving the Puzzle of Member and Balance Growth
3. What Do Members Want? Shifting Consumer Needs and Attitudes and How Credit Unions Can Respond
4. Differentiating on Purpose: How to Use the Promise of Credit Unions to Compete and Win
5. Artificial Intelligence: Impacts for Credit Unions
6. See Sooner, Act Faster: Innovation that Drives Growth
7. The Future of the Credit Union Workforce & Workplace
8. COMING SOON -- Leadership Matters: The Next Generation of Credit Union Leaders

Session Details

Executing in an Everything, Everywhere, All at Once World

• Unlocking Value: Credit unions today face an environment marked by relentless change, information overload, and the need for accelerated decision-making. Persistent focus allows credit unions to prioritize, optimize, and navigate this everything, everywhere, all-at-once world.
• Speed to Insight: The faster credit unions can understand members, the faster credit unions can focus resources on what matters most. 
• Speed to Action: The faster credit unions can confidently take action, even in the face of uncertainty, the more efficient and productive credit unions can be.

Solving the Puzzle of Member and Balance Growth

• What Differentiates Thriving Credit Unions: How can credit unions confront a tricky economic and operating environment to grow members and deposits? Thriving credit unions can show us the way.
• The Puzzle-Solving Mindset: Leaders of thriving credit unions see growth as a puzzle to be solved, focusing on understanding their market, building an organizational identity, and embracing strategic trade-offs.
• Driving & Measuring Performance: Loans and Deposit Growth: Knowing that the puzzle can be solved isn’t always enough. Thriving credit unions find innovative ways to use product, messaging, and technology to find new members and grow balances.

What Do Members Want? Shifting Consumer Needs and Attitudes and How Credit Unions Can Respond

• The Real Value of Data: Credit unions with member-focused strategies perform better and grow faster. But a member-focused strategy is dependent on understanding what members want out of their credit union—and this requires good data.
• The Five Types of Credit Union Member: After a year of research, Filene has identified five segments of credit union members based on their core needs, attitudes, and motivations: hopeful help-seekers, comfortable community-seekers, solution-oriented shoppers, overburdened bystanders, and enterprising experts.
• How to Use Data to Drive Member Engagement: How can credit unions best leverage data-driven member segmentation? By tailoring strategy, innovating and bundling products and services, and personalizing communication at scale, credit unions can deepen member engagement and build lasting relationships.

Differentiating on Purpose: How to Use the Promise of Credit Unions to Compete and Win

• Why Differentiate on Purpose: In an increasingly competitive marketplace, successful strategy is all about intentional differentiation. Differentiating credit unions today are aligning business strategy with community commitment and identifying sustainable competitive advantages that bring relevance and impact.
• From Financial Inclusion to Financial Well-Being for All: Credit unions have long focused on advancing financial inclusion in the communities they serve. Today, access is not enough, and credit unions must look to provide holistic support for their members’, employees’, and communities financial health and well-being. How can credit unions make financial well-being into an effective business strategy?
• The Changing Climate for Credit Unions -- Risks & Opportunities: Climate change poses strategic risks for all financial institutions, but it also offers massive opportunities, especially for credit unions. Careful risk management and sound strategic partnerships can lay the foundation for credit unions to take advantage of new growth opportunities in a changing economy.

Artificial Intelligence: Impacts for Credit Unions

• Understanding What AI Is and Is Not: Artificial Intelligence is one of the newest and most transformative change agents to impact the credit union industry, yet confusion rages about what is truly “AI” and what should and should not bear that label.
• Features, Abilities, and Threats of Generative AI: Understanding how generative AI works, including what it does well and what it does poorly, can help credit unions leverage the opportunities and manage threats that AI brings in a trustworthy way.
• Use Cases for Generative AI in Credit Unions: Generative AI has great potential for credit unions, when managed properly. Which use cases make sense for credit unions, and which ones invite too much risk?

See Sooner, Act Faster: Innovation that Drives Growth

• Why Innovation Matters: Innovation and Performance: Innovation drives growth. New research from Filene documents the links between credit union innovation and member satisfaction, loyalty, and product usage and describes the drivers of innovation, inside and outside the credit union.
• Cultivating Innovation Capability through Vigilance and Adaptability: Credit unions are not typically well-known for their agility, but in fact they have become surprisingly innovative organizations. How can credit unions embed the value and practice of innovation in their business model and organizational culture to “see sooner” and “act faster”?
• Partnership-Driven Innovation and the Future of the Credit Union-Fintech Ecosystem: Innovation in credit unions has often been driven through partnership. How are credit unions leveraging collaborations with fintechs and credit union service organizations (CUSOs) to identify, create, and launch new solutions, partner more quickly and flexibly, and manage the risks of experimentation?

The Future of the Credit Union Workforce & Workplace

• Attracting, Retaining, and Managing Talent in the Hybrid Era: Talent attraction, retention, and management has evolved in the aftermath of COVID and the new hybrid work era. Hybrid work presents both opportunities and risks— understanding how these risks affect employee well-being and culture is key to becoming successful in a hybrid environment.
• Data-Driven Cultures and Learning Organizations: The business environment today requires transformational change from credit unions to stay relevant—and transformational change requires a culture that encourages and supports the ability to adapt to change and the use of data to make decisions.
• Employee Engagement and the DEI Business Case: To drive efficiency and growth, teams must stay engaged and aligned. Research from Filene shows that more diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplaces can result in enhanced employee experience. But one-off policies are not enough, and the most successful credit unions build employee engagement into their overall organizational strategy.

Filene Roadmap to Excellence

• Filene 101: To learn more about Filene, the many offerings available to members, and how we can help your credit union achieve its goals by maximizing the value of your membership

Contact us at [email protected] to join our monthly virtual sessions.

Outcomes

• Research and innovation to inform your organization’s strategy and tactics
• Evidence-based guidance and best practices for credit union leaders and teams
• Action steps, tools, and case studies that participants can use immediately to put insights into practice

Contact our Advisory Team about bringing Filene Speakers to your organization.