Before joining Firelands Federal Credit Union ($554.6M, Bellevue, OH) as chief financial officer in 2023, Don Rositano built a career at the intersection of banking and membership-driven retail, shaping how he approaches value, pricing, and performance.

Before entering the credit union space, Rositano spent more than a decade with Sam’s Club, where he led finance for a $2.2 billion division. That environment, where members pay for access and expect clear value in return, mirrors the credit union model more than it might seem, he says — and reinforced a core belief he carries into his current role: get value right for members, and the financial results follow.

Personal And Professional Journey

What attracted you to the credit union industry?

Don Rositano: I am fortunate to have been the CFO of two different community-based banks and most recently was the senior finance manager of a $2.2 billion division of Sam’s Club out of Bentonville, AK.

I loved working for Sam’s, but Cleveland is my home. My family and kids are here, and we were ready to be closer to them. When the CFO opportunity at Firelands came up, I felt my banking and membership experience would dovetail nicely. At Sam’s, we understood members pay for the privilege to shop there; that’s our philosophy at the credit union, too.

What has surprised you about working in the credit union space?

DR: One of the biggest surprises is that profitability is not the focus, people are. In my prior position, I had to reforecast our profit and sales projections every week, and we needed to produce solutions if we were suffering a shortfall.

At Firelands, although we need profits to fund growth, serving our members is our priority goal, and we forecast to meet their needs. Our profitability is a by-product of those relationships. In the three years I’ve been here, our cumulative annual growth rate is 10.46% — without mergers or adding branches — and our ROA has jumped from 0.66% to 1.41% year-to-date.

The Credit Union Learning Curve

How would you compare the culture of credit unions to your previous industry?

DR: There are a lot of similarities between Sam’s Club and Firelands. Both companies are driven to provide ultimate value to their members and to curate product offerings to reduce confusion and maximize value. Many companies like to provide products and services that have all these bells and whistles when what most members want is a great product at a great price.

Did you have any misconceptions about credit unions when you joined?

DR: As a former banker, my viewpoint was limited by industry misconceptions. I felt credit unions were behind in innovation and technological sophistication. Credit unions were the institutions you went to for auto lending and Christmas Club accounts.

The longer I’ve been in this position, I realize how wrong I was. Credit unions can master the balance of national competition, service, and evolving technology while still taking care of and seeing the member as an individual instead of a number.

What challenges did you face transitioning into the credit union space?

DR: Credit union jargon. Calling deposits “shares” and interest “dividends” has taken me a while. I’ve also had to change my thinking about profitability and service. I’ve spent a lot of time on nonprofit boards, and I love this serving philosophy in our company.

Leadership And Strategy

How did your prior financial services experience shape your leadership approach at the credit union?

DR: At Walmart, there would always be times when other retailers were cheaper, and we understood that. We wanted to be the consistent price leader, not chase a short-term discount. At Firelands, we’ve been trying to position ourselves so members are better off overall with our products than anywhere else.

For example, in my first year, we increased our primary share rate well above the rest of our competitors. We were able to create some savings in one of our expense categories and instead of dropping those savings to our bottom line, we reinvested them in higher yields on members’ dividends.

What lessons or strategies from your career have proven most valuable in your credit union role?

DR: At Sam’s I learned the importance of viewing pricing specials as an investment versus a cost. The goal is to offer something well-priced and use this as a gateway to have them experience more of the club.

I’ve used that same mindset at the credit union, and we have offered aggressive CD rates for shorter terms of four to seven months. We’ve found we do not lose this money when the CD expires, and the higher rate inspires higher loyalty.

We also never have a special only for new money. That tells existing members they are not as important. We’re in it for the long term. Our mindset has resulted in gaining greater share of our existing members’ wallet.

In addition, we offer a well-priced money market account where our highest yield right now is 3%. Our money market accounts have grown 40% in 2024 and 30% in 2025. Our members want an excellent rate but also want liquidity and freedom to move their money.

As a bonus, I enjoy paying a lower rate versus CDs and appreciate the flexibility to adjust rates based on market ebbs and flows.

What aspects of leading a credit union required a completely new mindset or skillset for you?

DR: Sam’s is a destination club. When I left, it had around 600 clubs throughout the nation. It can afford to invest in the largest markets because members will come. When I worked in a club, we had members who would come from 60 miles away every month to stock up.

However, many credit union members need physical closeness of a local branch. Not that they necessarily use it, but they want the comfort of knowing it is there when they need it.  We are investigating ways to meet those needs while balancing the high costs of an extensive branch network.

Members-First Focus

How did you adapt to the members-first model? Are there parallels to your previous roles?

DR: I came from a member-focused organization. It bothers me when I see financial institutions focus more on profits than customers. For example, we have many banks around us that might offer a nice special CD rate, but they keep their basic rates below 1%. If a customer does not inquire, they will go from a 4% special down to a 0.15% CD rate as it rolls over. I find that unethical and anti-customer.

How have you helped improve member engagement or services?

DR: We are looking forward to making some adjustments to our checking accounts. Members want a payment mechanism at a low cost. We listened to what members are asking for, and we’ll be adding member send capabilities for both RTP and FedNow.

There’s fraud risk with these payment streams, and frankly, we need to be OK with some losses to offer these services. If we don’t, members will move to other financial institutions or fintechs that offer them. In the next few years, it is going to be a requirement as a financial institution to be in business. The writing is on the wall; I don’t want to be left behind.

Advice And Future Outlook

What advice do you have for someone considering an executive role in a credit union, especially if they’re coming from another industry?

DR: Be open to the process and understand it can be tough because we answer to members and not to shareholders. The most critical thing they need to understand is that we need to be member focused.

If you do what’s right for the members, they appreciate it and the business will grow. It’s satisfying hearing other bank employees say how wonderful we are and if they cannot do something, they refer the customer to us.

You also need to be active in the community. I’ve walked in parades; I’ve manned an inflatable slide at a community festival. If you have no desire to be part of the community, then maybe a credit union is not for you. We’ve assumed many leadership positions that community banks used to lead.

How might your prior experience help shape the future of your credit union’s strategy?

DR: I’ve been the main proponent of bringing in a data warehouse. I’ve seen the power of analytics and the ability to drive business through understanding our own membership base. A warehouse lets you see where you should focus your limited resources to help the most members, and that can drive your growth.

Harvard did a study a while back that showed the more options you offer a customer, the more confused they become about what to buy. And sometimes they purchase nothing.

I looked at our product line at Sam’s and noticed we had several products that were not profitable. We reduced our product line by more than 40%, saw a 1% to 2% reduction in sales over the next 12 months, but saw a 25% profit improvement. It also set up the division in the following years to increase sales faster than the rest of the market.

Personal Reflections

What’s been the most fulfilling part of working in the credit union space?

DR: I love our place in the community. Our CEO goes to different county fairs and makes sure each 4H participant gets a fair price for their entry. We’ve spent $75,000 on these fairs, but the smiles on the participants’ faces are priceless. We’re the champions of the underdog and pride ourselves in making sure no one is left behind.

If you could give yourself advice on your first day at a credit union, what would it be?

DR: Don’t get too anxious to perform. Learn the culture of the credit union and look for ways where you can enhance it. Enjoy the ride. It’s a rewarding experience.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

What can you learn from like-minded leaders? Don Rositano’s path from Sam’s Club to credit union CFO is a reminder that the best strategic instincts often come from unexpected places. Callahan Roundtables put credit union finance executives in the same room to share what’s working, pose hard questions, and learn from peers navigating the same challenges. Learn more and register.

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We view member experience as a system that must be designed, measured, and continuously improved. That requires clear ownership at the executive level. My role is crucial not to control all touch points but to align the organization around an MX strategy.

Andre Vygnanski joined OUR Credit Union ($360.4M, Royal Oak, MI) as the chief experience office in February 2024. Prior to that he was CEO at Ukrainian Selfreliance Michigan Federal Credit Union ($138.0M, Warren, MI) for more than five years and had been a relationship manager for a major bank for nearly nine years.

What has changed in member experience, what hasn’t, and how has its leadership matured at credit unions?

Andre Vygnanski: Several years ago, member experience was about service, how friendly we were, how quickly we responded, and how consistent we were across branches. The core of member experience is still about trust and human member connection, which remains our differentiator, but member experience is no longer a front-line initiative. It’s now part of the entire credit union mission.

Member experience is now shaped just as much by digital platforms, data, and automation as it is by people in branches and contact centers. Members expect one seamless relationship with us. My role has matured from overseeing service delivery to creating the entire member lifecycle. This includes onboarding, digital engagement, product adoption, and long-term relationship management.

The other part is involved in technology decisions, data strategy, and revenue generation. Experience is no longer soft function, it is directly tied to growth, retention, and member lifetime value. Our credit union treats member experience not as a department but as a system that drives the whole organization.

Two more important aspects. First, employee experience is just as important to me as MX because I must empower our employees to serve our members. Second, member expectations are shifting from experience to guidance. Members expect us to use the data they allow us to access to guide them, not just serve them.

How does your organization approach member experience, and where does dedicated MX leadership have the most impact today?

Andre Vygnanski: We view member experience as a system that must be designed, measured, and continuously improved. That requires clear ownership at the executive level. My role is crucial not to control all touch points but to align the organization around an MX strategy.

Digital branch environment becomes more critical because there are fewer touchpoints to recover from poor experiences. Our staff has an increasing amount of data specifically from digital channels about preferences, behaviors, and trends, and we need leadership to turn that into action steps so we can continue to meet growing demands of members through guidance and service.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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“When I became a CXO in 2018, I was often asked, ‘What does that mean?’ These days, heads nod and I’m asked, ‘So, which experiences are you responsible for?’”

Stacy Armijo joined Amplify Credit Union ($1.3B, Austin, TX) as its chief experience officer in 2018, when the title was first gaining traction among credit unions. Before she arrived at Amplify, she spent more than 16 years at an Austin-San Antonio public relations and communications firm.

What has changed in member experience, what hasn’t, and how has its leadership matured at credit unions?

Stacy Armijo: When I became a CXO in 2018, I was often asked, “What does that mean?” These days, heads nod and I’m asked, “So, which experiences are you responsible for?”

That indicates a profound and positive shift in the industry. As proud as we are of friendly and effective staff in our branches and contact centers, often the best “experience” is one that means a member never needs to seek service. That’s why it’s crucial we don’t simply swap terms without touching responsibilities and organizational structures.

To make that change meaningful, we must give experience leaders purview over the practices, teams, and platforms that enable them to optimize across channels. We also need a clear point of view about how digital experiences should weave together with phone and in-person service. Long gone are the days of treating digital as a back-office function simply because it’s technology.

However, many organizations have a new challenge, which is digital member service in its own silo, away from phone and physical. That’s a mistake. Those teams should be working together every day and learning from the insights each can offer the other.

Who knows the weaknesses in your digital channels? Your contact center team. Who knows if your householding functions are working as they should? Your branch team. If those teams don’t talk every day, you’ll miss those insights.

Delivering that level of cohesion requires an organizational structure that doesn’t pit channels against one another for attention and budget. It means only giving someone a “member experience” title if you also give them the authority to shape that experience. It requires clarity about the distinct value each channel should deliver for members. And, it requires rewarding teams for contributing to success beyond their channel. To quote Dr. Art Markman and Dr. Bob Duke of Two Guys on Your Head, “There is what you say, what you do, and what you reward … and people are motivated by those in reverse order.”

Experience leaders must have the capacity to lead across multiple complex functions while balancing the tension between quality member experiences with responsible fraud mitigation. That’s now table stakes and it’s the most significant evolution I’ve seen in my time in the role.

How does your organization approach member experience, and where does dedicated MX leadership have the most impact today?

Stacy Armijo: Our organization has gone the route of broadening the role, folding more under the experience function as the years have passed. I was our first CXO and, initially, it was primarily a marketing role with the intention of adding retail and other functions previously in operations.

Today, the role spans demand, deposits, payments, and people, which comprises almost half of our team. That occurred because we kept seeing contingencies and commonalities. For example, there was never a plan to add HR and training, but we quickly realized that if we wanted a unified member experience, we needed an aligned employee experience.

Also, we noticed how often we’d say, “We need input from so-and-so,” and eventually, it just made sense to have those teams together. If you believe, like we do, that member experience is shaped by far more than those who interact personally with members, then MX should be a strategic function, not a department.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Don’t stop here. Stacy Armijo works across her enterprise and the community to promote member service and brand awareness at Amplify Credit Union. Read more in “What’s In A Name: Chief Experience Officer.”

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Organizations that treat experience as a core capability, supported by clear ownership and strong leadership, are best positioned to compete, grow, and attract and retain talent.

Inna Sprague has been chief experience officer at Teachers Federal Credit Union ($9.9B, Hauppauge, NY) since March 2020. She joined the Long Island-based cooperative after six years at a large California credit union and more than seven years with a big bank.

What has changed in member experience, what hasn’t, and how has its leadership matured at credit unions?

Inna Sprague: The foundation of member experience remains grounded in understanding and anticipating member needs, building trust, and delivering value at every interaction. What has changed is the scope of what experience represents and the pace at which expectations continue to evolve. Members are no longer evaluating their financial institution based on a single transaction or touchpoint. They are evaluating how an organization shows up across every interaction, including digital engagement, communications, and community presence.

As a result, the CXO role has matured into a truly enterprisewide function, bringing together data, technology, operations, brand, communications, and employee readiness to ensure a cohesive and consistent experience.

At Teachers Federal Credit Union, this evolution has been central to our growth. By aligning experience with data, marketing, communications, and community engagement, we are able to take a more connected and intentional approach to how we engage with members and how we share the value of membership. This strengthens trust, deepens relationships, and supports our growth goals while maintaining a consistent, high-quality experience.

How does your organization approach member experience, and where does dedicated MX leadership have the most impact today?

Inna Sprague: The CXO role is critical to the strength of an organization because experience is a primary driver of growth, loyalty, and differentiation. In the financial services industry, where products can often feel commoditized and trust is paramount, the experience an organization delivers becomes one of the most meaningful ways to stand apart.

As consumer expectations continue to rise, success is measured by more than satisfaction. In financial services, it is defined by trust, engagement, ease of interaction, and long-term member value. The greatest impact for CX leadership today is in connecting these outcomes to business strategy. This includes using data and insights to anticipate member needs, simplify complexity, and ensure that every interaction reinforces confidence in the institution — while also equipping and empowering our employees with the tools and training they need to deliver an exceptional experience.

Organizations that treat experience as a core capability, supported by clear ownership and strong leadership, are best positioned to compete, grow, and attract and retain talent in an increasingly dynamic and competitive financial landscape.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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We understand member experience as an enterprise responsibility. The CXO role acts as a steward of experience, helping translate strategy into day-to-day behaviors and decisions.

Kim Riley has been the chief experience officer at Wright-Patt Credit Union ($9.6B, Beavercreek, OH) since January 2025. She previously held the roles of senior vice president of member experience and vice president of service delivery at the Ohio cooperative.

What has changed in member experience, what hasn’t, and how has its leadership matured at credit unions?

Kim Riley: At its core, the chief experience role has always been about serving members. What has evolved is how we look at the many moving parts that influence a member’s experience. Consequently, the role has evolved into a strategic, enterprise-level leadership function that sits at the intersection of member needs, operational reality, and organizational strategy.

Member experience is not a linear journey or a set of touchpoints. It’s a dynamic ecosystem that spans everything we do — including digital platforms, front-line interactions, internal processes, and employee behaviors. Intentionally looking at that dynamic ecosystem as a whole helps better serve our members.

One example of how the role has shifted because of this mindset is how we focus our improvement efforts. Rather than optimizing individual experiences, we focus on designing systems that consistently deliver trust, ease, and value at scale. As digital offerings and self-service capabilities continue to expand, the experience leadership function now focuses on ensuring those tools are intuitive, inclusive, and supported by real people when members need them most.

The CXO role has also matured to balance member expectations, like personalization, transparency, and speed without losing the caring service and relational strengths that make us stand out as credit unions.  This helps organizations deliver modern, competitive experiences while staying true to our missions.

Also, and importantly, the role has expanded beyond member-facing moments to include employee experience, operational alignment, and organizational readiness. Experience outcomes today are deeply influenced by how well teams are equipped, how clearly expectations are set, and how effectively departments work together.

As a result, the CXO role is now a catalyst for cross-functional alignment, change management, and cultural consistency.

How does your organization approach member experience, and where does dedicated MX leadership have the most impact today?

Kim Riley: At WPCU, part of our vision is to be the best organization our member-owners have ever experienced. Dedicated MX leadership is critical in working toward that vision. It ensures experience is intentional, measurable, and sustainable. Centralization helps with consistency, managing competing priorities, and establishing clear accountability for outcomes.

We understand member experience as an enterprise responsibility. The CXO role acts as a steward of experience, helping translate strategy into day-to-day behaviors and decisions.

Today, dedicated MX leadership has the most impact in three areas:

• Aligning Across Functions — Experience leaders help ensure the credit union evaluates operational, digital, risk, and people decisions through a consistent member and employee lens, especially as services become more complex and technology-driven.
• Evolving Success Measurement — Member experience is no longer defined by a single score. Member experience leaders help interpret a broad set of signals such as behavioral trends, operational friction, employee insight, and long-term outcomes to guide smarter decisions and investments.
• Strengthening Culture And Accountability — As expectations rise, clarity matters. Member experience leadership helps establish shared expectations around serving members, supporting employees, and balancing efficiency with care. This creates consistency while acknowledging the varied ways teams contribute to the member experience.

In today’s environment, experience is a strategic differentiator rather than a program or a department. The CXO role ensures experience remains aligned with the credit union’s purpose while adapting to changing member needs, workforce dynamics, and competitive pressures.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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Top-Level Takeaways

• Teams that optimize in silos can degrade the overall member journey.
• When no one owns cross-team decisions, outcomes tend to default to the safest option — not the best one for members.
• Clear ownership aligns goals, data, and outcomes from dedicated teams.

Member experience doesn’t fall apart because teams don’t care; it breaks when no one owns the decisions that cut across them. Avoiding that reality is shaping the member journey at FORUM Credit Union ($2.3B, Fishers, IN).

According to Andrew Spirrison, FORUM’s chief member experience officer since February 2023, member experience used to mean the quality of front-line interactions but now includes onboarding, digital, service, retention, and more. A role that owns member experience today must be integrated across the organization’s operations and channels.

“The job is less about coaching tellers and more about partnering with teams across the credit union so the journey feels consistent end to end,” Spirrison says.

Consequently, member experience leaders must navigate a complex environment that requires them to connect decisions made in separate parts of the organization.

Shared Ownership, Fractured Experience

Distributed ownership can work, but complexity makes it harder, especially as more channels and systems shape the member journey in parallel rather than sequence.

It wasn’t too long ago that digital channels and capabilities were an add-on. Today, digital serves as the experience and expectation for most members, Spirrison says. As more teams influence a single journey, the risk rises that their efforts drift apart without clear coordination. Such fragmentation often happens quietly, as each team improves its own performance while unintentionally creating friction elsewhere in the experience.

“Without one clear owner — or small group of owners — overseeing the whole journey, each team can optimize their own piece while the end-to-end experience breaks down,” Spirrison says.

In effect, local gains can produce global inconsistencies when no one is accountable for stitching together digital, branch, payments, and service into a coherent whole.

The Tradeoffs No One Owns

As complexity grows, so do the number of decisions that don’t belong to any single team, particularly those that require balancing competing priorities.

“Many decisions involve tradeoffs,” Spirrison says. “Speed versus risk, personalization versus privacy, and cost versus experience.”

Without a clear owner, those decisions tend to stall or default to the safest path rather than the best one for members. In some scenarios, ambiguity in ownership doesn’t just delay progress but can actively degrade outcomes across both service and compliance. The result is slower execution and missed opportunities, even when every team is acting with the member in mind.

“When nobody clearly owns the decision, it can get lost in translation and result in a negative member and regulatory experience,” Spirrison says.

Requirements For Effective Shared Ownership

FORUM’s experience suggests shared ownership works best when paired with clear accountability, particularly around decisions that cut across organizational boundaries. A credit union can distribute responsibilities, but it also must define accountability for the end-to-end experience if it wants consistency across channels.

“Someone has to own the journey,” Spirrison says.

That clarity extends beyond structure into how the credit union makes, measures, and reinforces decisions through systems and data. Analytics play a big role here, and FORUM deploys three distinct streams — journey analytics, behavioral data, and real-time feedback loops.

• Journey Analytics — Using end-to-end experience data across a prioritized set of member journeys, including account opening and depository products, lending, and self-service account maintenance. “We employ this at FORUM across multiple business channels — deriving a suite of informational dashboards that are leveraged for key service, product, and delivery channel decision-making,” Spirrison says.
• Behavioral Data — Spotting patterns that drive personalization and flagging where members get stuck or drop off. “This defines our new partnership and implementation of a true digital and in-branch lending and new account experience,” Spirrison says. “This includes interactive journey reporting to promptly detect and address journey bottlenecks.”
• Real-Time Feedback Loops — Using survey results, complaints, abandonment, decisioning signals, and more to surface and address issues while they still matter. “Similar to above plus acting on what you are hearing and seeing while it still matters,” Spirrison says.

The veteran experience and retail manager adds that the scorecard has grown beyond Net Promoter Score to include effort scores, digital adoption, new account application pull-through success rate, churn risk, active checking percentages, and overall membership and account lifetime value.

Altogether, he says, this comprehensive tracking of end-to-end experience data across a prioritized set of member journeys helps teams align around shared outcomes rather than isolated metrics and makes it easier to detect fragmentation.

What’s Next For MX?

Looking ahead, member experience leadership roles are set to continue to expand as member expectations rise and competition broadens beyond traditional peers into fintechs and digital-first platforms. Spirrison points to enhanced AI service and personalization presented in a localized, member-centric way as one of several areas shaping how member experience will evolve in the near future.

At the same time, MX leadership roles are becoming more proactive, focused on anticipating needs rather than reacting to them after friction appears. Such an approach can solve problems before members notice them.

Of course, as visibility increases, the experience function is also integrating more deeply into strategy and governance, with clearer ties to growth. Ultimately, the trajectory reflects a broader change in how credit unions think about member experience as a function of leadership and execution.

“The role has moved from ‘make service better’ to ‘design and run the member experience as a growth engine,’” Spirrison says.

That shift reinforces the central idea that ownership, not just intent, determines whether a distributed model delivers consistency or fragmentation.

“Some institutions can spread CMXO responsibilities across leaders and still make it work,” Spirrison says. “But when there is no one accountable owner, the common failure mode is fragmentation: handoffs get messy, decisions slow down, and accountability blurs.”

Instead, he says, credit unions that treat the member experience as a true cross-functional strategy will move faster while remaining more consistent. That’s when managing the member journey becomes less about owning service and more about making everything members and employees touch feel connected.

The post When Everyone Owns The Member Experience, No One Does appeared first on CreditUnions.com.

What began as a push to improve service at the front line has become an enterprise-level responsibility shaped by digital channels, data, and rising expectations. The concept is no longer new, yet the work and the clear need for ownership of it has never been more complex.

That evolution has reshaped how today’s experience leaders describe their work — it’s less about championing service ideals and more about owning what members actually experience across the organization.

“When I became a CXO in 2018, I was often asked, ‘What does that mean?’ These days, heads nod and I’m asked, ‘So, which experiences are you responsible for?”

Stacy Armijo, Chief Experience Officer, Amplify Credit Union

Read More From Stacy Armijo

“The maturing of the CXO role demands we shift our thinking on service delivery models and face the reality that members are beginning to place a higher value on our processes over our people. A clean, friction-free process beats the warmest smile and the firmest handshake.”

Jimmy Lovelace, Chief Experience Officer, Community First Credit Union of Florida

Read More From Jimmy Lovelace

“I’ve never met another CXO who had the same make up of teams or areas of specialization, but we’re all driving toward the same output. What makes the practice of experience so beautiful is that it can be owned by so many leaders, across different areas of practice, including digital, service, technology, marketing … the list goes on and on.”

Ami Iceman Haueter, Chief Experience Officer, MSUFCU

Read More From Ami Iceman Haueter

“We view member experience as a system that must be designed, measured, and continuously improved. That requires clear ownership at the executive level. My role is crucial not to control all touch points but to align the organization around an MX strategy.”

Andre Vygnanski, Chief Experience Officer, OUR Credit Union

Read More From Andre Vygnanski

“Organizations that treat experience as a core capability, supported by clear ownership and strong leadership, are best positioned to compete, grow, and attract and retain talent.”

Inna Sprague, Chief Experience Officer, Teachers FCU

Read More From Inna Sprague

“We understand member experience as an enterprise responsibility. The CXO role acts as a steward of experience, helping translate strategy into day-to-day behaviors and decisions.”

— Kim Riley, Chief Experience Officer, Wright-Patt Credit Union-

Read More From Kim Riley

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I’ve never met another CXO who had the same make up of teams or areas of specialization, but we’re all driving toward the same output. What makes the practice of experience so beautiful is that it can be owned by so many leaders, across different areas of practice, including digital, service, technology, marketing … the list goes on and on.

Ami Iceman Haueter joined Michigan State University Federal Credit Union ($8.4B, East Lansing, MI) as its assistant vice president of research and digital experience in 2019. She stepped into the role of chief experience office in January 2025.

What has changed in member experience, what hasn’t, and how has its leadership matured at credit unions?

Ami Iceman Haueter: The criticality of the role remains the same; what “experience” includes is ever evolving. Roles like a chief experience officer serve a multitude of needs for institutions and can often be seen as the Swiss army knife of the credit union.

I’ve never met another CXO who had the same make up of teams or areas of specialization, but we’re all driving toward the same output, to create better experiences for our members, employees, and communities. What makes the practice of experience so beautiful is that it can be owned by so many leaders, across different areas of practice including, digital, service, technology, marketing … the list goes on and on.

The trick is to remain focused on the intention of the experiences you’re working to create to ensure productive outcomes.

How does your organization approach member experience, and where does dedicated MX leadership have the most impact today?

Ami Iceman Haueter: If no one is paying attention to how experiences are connected, curated, or created, you ultimately end up with a hodge podge of “almost there” work. I fundamentally believe experience design is everyone’s responsibility, but you need a leader or leaders to help create a clear vision and plan on how to execute.

In our organization, we focus on service experience, brand experience, and digital experience. Especially in the digital service space, having a focused leader or team ensures the ever-growing to-do list is maintained and prioritized for experience impact.

In today’s market, members have experience expectations before they ever walk in or log in. Our opportunity is to show them we won’t only meet those expectations but exceed them because we know them best.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Don’t stop here. Before she was a CXO, Ami Iceman Haueter tackled a new C-level role and a merged division to drive digital innovation at MSUFCU. Read more in “What’s In A Name: Chief Research And Digital Experience Officer.”

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The maturing of the CXO role demands we shift our thinking on service delivery models and face the reality that members are beginning to place a higher value on our processes over our people. A clean, friction-free process beats the warmest smile and the firmest handshake.

Jimmy Lovelace joined Community First Credit Union of Florida ($3.0B, Jacksonville, FL) as its vice president of branches in 2014 after several years with a major bank. He became the Florida cooperative’s chief experience officer in March 2023.

What has changed in member experience, what hasn’t, and how has its leadership matured at credit unions?

Jimmy Lovelace: Let’s start with what hasn’t changed. The member still expects and deserves a great experience. What has changed is how we deliver it and what key components define it.

There was a time when we focused on things like “service with a smile” or “speed of answer” in call centers. With the digital age, service is more about first-point-of-contact resolution, transparency, and instant digital delivery, fulfillment, and empowerment.

AI is here and upending all pre-conceived notions on process design and digital delivery. Service used to be personal, requiring multiple in-person touchpoints to deliver. But the landscape has shifted. The member might prefer to go it alone but wants to feel that whoever designed the process did so with them in mind.

Fintechs do an excellent job of removing barriers in digital processes that we insist on having a human do. Members love a human in the loop when they want it, but we continue to insist our digital processes include that human touch because we have conditioned ourselves to believe that people equal service.

The maturing of the CXO role demands we shift our thinking on service delivery models and face the reality that members are beginning to place a higher value on our processes over our people. A clean, friction-free process beats the warmest smile and the firmest handshake.

How does your organization approach member experience, and where does dedicated MX leadership have the most impact today?

Jimmy Lovelace: There has long been a saying that “service is everyone’s responsibility.” We all play a role in delighting our members, but the CXO is responsible for the strategy and interconnectivity of our delivery channels into one seamless experience.

It’s this role that collaborates with key stakeholders to create a vision for what role branches play in membership growth and market development. The CXO is responsible for activating the contact center as a sales and service provider to support service and growth.

This role also integrates into all digital delivery channels so we can serve our members in the ways they want. Once the strategy is locked in, the CXO becomes a central figure in developing and deploying the tactical plans, roadmaps, and metrics that keep the member experience aligned with organizational expectations.

Finally, the CXO serves as the key listening post for members and teammates so their feedback remains central to strategy shifts and modifications. Although there are organizations that fold these duties into multiple roles, there is greater value in having one collaborator curating the experience to exceed organizational expectations.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Don’t stop here. Jimmy Lovelace helps Community First realize the benefits of humanizing the sales and service processes. Read more in “Jimmy Lovelace On Leadership.”

The post 6 Takes On Today’s Member Experience: Jimmy Lovelace appeared first on CreditUnions.com.

Top-Level Takeaways

• Strong AI policies balance control with enablement, not restriction.
• Risk-tiering and human oversight show up in every mature approach.
• Training and governance matter as much as the technology itself.

Credit unions are no longer asking whether to adopt artificial intelligence. They’re figuring out how to govern it before it governs them, and that shift is showing up clearly in how they write and enforce policies.

Across institutions, leaders describe the same tension in slightly different ways.

“AI adoption is not optional for high-performing organizations, but it must be done responsibly and intentionally,” says Paul Donahue, senior vice president of collections and information security at CEFCU ($8.3B, Peoria, IL).

At Sunward Federal Credit Union ($4.6B, Albuquerque, NM), vice president Dennis Wood says the credit union designed its AI rules to provide handrails, not handcuffs, to guide employees without slowing progress.

“Our policy is meant to educate and guide employees on proper usage of AI, whether used in their daily jobs or by vendor partners,” says Dennis Wood, vice president of innovation at Sunward. “We’ve also created a security policy that only allows employees to use AI resources once they have completed an annual training, vetted by our AI and data governance council.”

Best Practices For The Best Policies

A review of multiple real-world AI policies uncovers a consistent structure. Although language and formatting vary, the strongest policies converge around a handful of practical components that define how the credit union uses, governs, and monitors AI across the organization.

Some of the must-have components that emerged include:

• Clear acceptable use rules and defined tool access.
• Data security, privacy, and classification standards.
• Human oversight and accountability requirements.
• Risk tiering and governance processes.
• Vendor oversight and third-party accountability.
• Employee training and AI literacy expectations.

Managers say these elements appear repeatedly across policies not because they’re theoretical best practices, but because they address real operational risks that credit unions are already encountering.

Guardrails, Not Roadblocks, For Acceptable Use

Strong policies start with clarity around what employees can and cannot do. This includes approved tools, prohibited activities, and practical examples of acceptable use that remove ambiguity.

One policy explicitly limits usage to “Permitted AI Tools … vetted and approved by the AI Leadership Committee,” while prohibiting any unapproved tools without prior review. That’s particularly important because of how accessible these tools, which also are often free, have become. Leaders say this clarity is not optional given the enthusiasm for AI tools like ChatGPT and more.

“That enthusiasm reinforces why strong training and clear policies are essential,” says Donahue at CEFCU. “Training gives employees confidence to use AI responsibly, and policies provide practical, repeatable guardrails.”

Donahue notes that clear guidance builds confidence but it doesn’t eliminate risk. That’s where technical controls come in as a necessary backstop.

“Technical restrictions remain an important layer of protection,” the SVP says. “Controls such as blocking unapproved external AI tools help reduce exposure, but the goal is to continually enhance technical safeguards without preventing employees from leveraging AI productively.”

He says what’s worked best is combining clear, board‑backed governance, human‑in‑the‑loop approval requirements, and a pragmatic low‑risk certification pathway.

Responsible AI And Data Discipline

If there is one area where policies require exacting detail, it is in data protection. Across documents, strict rules around sensitive data, personally identifiable information (PII), and confidential information are non-negotiable.

One credit union’s policy prohibits entering PII such as member numbers, credit card numbers, and other sensitive data into AI tools, whereas another policy establishes entire categories of restricted data that AI systems cannot access at all. These controls reflect a shared understanding that the biggest AI risk is not the model itself, but how data flows through it.

That concern shows up consistently in how leaders talk about training. At Sunward, Wood says effective programs must include “best practices to protect PII/NPPI data” alongside risks like bias and hallucinations, reinforcing that responsible AI starts with data discipline.

Humans Own The Outcome

Another universal element is the requirement for human oversight. No policy reviewed for this article allows AI to operate without accountability, especially in member-facing or decision-making contexts.

One policy states clearly that employees “may not make important decisions based solely on … AI Tool output.” Another emphasizes that AI must “augment human capabilities … not replace or undermine them.”

These are operational safeguards, not theoretical ones, and in practice, that means AI decisions still have a human owner.

“AI should augment, not replace, accountable decision-makers,” says Kayvee Kondapalli, executive vice president and chief information officer at Greater Texas Credit Union ($980.0M, Austin, TX). The executive adds that at his credit union, every system must have a defined human owner responsible for validation, monitoring, and escalation.

Risk Tiers And Governance In AI

A clear pattern across policies is the use of risk-tiering. Rather than treating all AI the same, institutions categorize use cases based on impact, complexity, and exposure.

At Greater Texas, governance distinguishes between assistive, decision-support, and member-impacting AI, with increasing levels of scrutiny as risk rises. Others apply a similar model, requiring executive-level approval for high-risk, member-impacting use cases.

Leaders say this structure works best when it is grounded in real use cases.

Doug True, CEO of FORUM Credit Union ($2.3B, Fishers, IN), says his shop’s approach is intentionally practical.

“Our AI governance framework is custom fit for our use cases and our partners involved with developing solutions,” he says. “That is supported by a cross-functional work team who meet regularly to share best practices in usage and governance.”

For FORUM, building real-world clarity into its AI strategy has translated into faster adoption without losing oversight.

“Driving processes and governance centered on specific use cases has been a logical and efficient practice for us,” True continues, noting that the approach allows the organization to balance speed with oversight while scaling adoption.

Vendors Are Part Of The Policy, Not Outside It

AI risk does not stop at internal tools. Policies consistently extend governance to vendors, requiring transparency, due diligence, and ongoing monitoring.

One policy makes this explicit: third-party providers “remain fully accountable for the security, compliance, accuracy, and outcomes of AI-enabled solutions,” and their use of AI does not transfer risk away from the credit union. Other policies reinforce this with requirements for model validation, testing access, and contractual controls.

Leaders say this is becoming more urgent as vendor capabilities evolve quickly.

“Many service providers … have adopted AI capabilities in a mad rush,” says Wood at Sunward. Such a pace makes it critical that credit unions continuously evaluate and reassess vendor risk rather than treat it as a one-time exercise.

“Your stakeholders will thank you for this,” Wood says.

Training Is The Policy In Action

Even the most detailed policy fails without employee understanding. That’s why training and AI literacy show up as core components across both policies and interviews on the subject.

At Sunward, employees cannot access AI tools until they complete required training, reinforcing accountability at the point of use. CEFCU similarly emphasizes “recurring training” as essential, particularly as adoption accelerates organically across teams.

Leaders consistently stress that training is what turns policy into practice. Technical controls can only go so far, making education and clear expectations the most effective way to scale responsible AI use across the organization.

The Bottom Line? The Real Standard Is Balance.

What stands out across these policies is not just what they include, but how they balance competing priorities. They’re intended to be structured enough to manage risk, but flexible enough to allow innovation.

That balance is also tied to mission.

“As a member-owned, not-for-profit cooperative, we owe it to our members to leverage tools like artificial intelligence to deliver on our value proposition,” says True at FORUM. “We are on a prudent path to take advantage of artificial intelligence while at the same time protecting the cooperative.”

Kondapalli at Greater Texas reinforces that broader takeaway, noting governance must be “principles-based, risk-calibrated, and continuously refined,” rather than static in a rapidly evolving environment.

In the end, a good AI policy is not defined by how much it restricts, but by how well it enables. The credit unions getting this right are not necessarily the ones moving the fastest — they’re the shops building governance that can keep up.

“The most effective AI policies are not fear-based,” Kondapalli says. “They balance protection with empowerment.”

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