Guess we should go through this stuff a couple of shovels at a time...
Eighteen months ago, Chairman Chris "Mr. NFPP"* Ayers, the SECU Board, and the current management inherited an organization with an unbroken (and unmatched!) 85-year record of growth in assets and membership from CEO Mike Lord. And, what is most interesting, growth had never been a driving force at SECU!
The theory then was, if SECU delivered exceptional service, unique, low-cost products; while keeping operational costs low and rates competitive, that members would beat a path to the credit union's door - bringing their families and colleagues with them. Growth was not seen as a goal, but as a result - a result of fair, efficient, member-focused service. That "strategic plan" appeared to work.
Here's where SECU stands according to its "recently released" 3/2023 financials:
✔ SECU is entering its second straight calendar year of declining assets, off 5% over the last twelve months .
✔ Here's what the current CEO said in a memo "To: All SECU Employees" (that's about 7,000 folks, if you need to confirm the source!) soon after his arrival at SECU:
"If all goes well, honestly, 3 years from now I hope we are serving over 3 million members...have assets over $70 billion...I don't intend to have our credit union shrink in the future...growth is the only thing on my radar."
✔ But even better, Chairman "Mr. NFPP" Ayers and the SECU Board have a Board-approved "Asset growth" target in their financial plan. Want to guess what the SECU Board's approved "Asset Growth Target" is for the financial year 6/30/2022 to 6/30/2023? ....+ 8%!
A +8% asset growth target, added to a -5% decline in actual growth (through 3/2023) would mean that the SECU Board and current managment are off their estimate by -13% - not exactly a "rounding error" in anybody's "strategic plan"! Could this be indicative of the overall quality of leadership planning at SECU? Many members - and a growing number at that - certainly think so.
'Course I haven't seen the latest SECU Board asset growth target (they didn't publish that!). Could be with this SECU Board, that when you miss a target - and start feeling like you may be held accountable - you simply change the target!
Kinda like what the Board did with those new, highly suppressive "Board Election Procedures"!
"A body of men and women holding themselves unaccountable to anybody, should be trusted by nobody.' - Thomas Paine
* "NFPP"= "No formal proposal proposal"
