There are leadership lessons that come out of teaching middle school that are applicable to my day-to-day work — the biggest one is leaning in with curiosity.
Brent Rempe is the president and CEO of First Alliance Credit Union ($284.4M, Rochester, MN), but his path to leadership didn’t begin in finance.
Early in his career, Rempe worked in education, helping to launch a Cristo Rey Catholic high school in Kansas City, MO, and later guiding middle school students through a grant-funded financial literacy program that opened more than 650 youth savings accounts at an Oklahoma credit union. That experience — along with his master’s degree in economic education — sparked his interest in the cooperative model and eventually led him to WEOKIE Federal Credit Union ($1.5B, Oklahoma City, OK), where he ran education programs before pursuing executive leadership roles.
Today, Rempe is building on that foundation of education and service to define his own brand of credit union leadership, first with four years as chief lending officer at Allegiance Credit Union ($358.6M, Oklahoma City, OK), then by taking the helm at First Alliance a little more than two years ago.
Read on for his reflections on the industry, partnerships, and the path ahead.
On leadership styles …
The idea of being a purpose-driven leader is something I’ve always identified with. I wake up every day excited to come to work for two reasons. First, I’ve found a credit union that aligns philosophically with serving the underserved. Second, I get out of bed every day and go to work to serve our members, but equally important is empowering the team, trying to motivate them, and bringing them together to create a culture I want to work in. I try to lean on the team to offset some of my weaknesses as a leader.
On empowering employees …
Our board, like me, recognizes that while we can define mission and vision, they only come to life when our team feels genuine ownership. That’s why, when we revised our mission, vision, and values in 2024, we invited a peer-elected group of employees to lead the process—ensuring the result reflected not just leadership’s words, but the team’s voice.
Employees don’t care about the bottom line; they care about getting behind a mission. Our mission is: We show up, listen to your story, and provide possibilities.
That’s what we do every day.
We execute that through storybook lending. Our operating expense ratio is higher than our peers because we take time with members to make an underwriting decision based on if their story makes sense versus [big box] lending where they’re just their credit score, their DTI, and their LTV. Our vision is a financial oasis where everyone has access to the opportunities they deserve.
On culture and recruiting …
Our values are passion, persistence, and presence — that’s what we expect from one another and that describes the qualities of our ideal team member. That’s helped change the culture of the organization and plays into being a mission-aligned organization and trying to get people behind that mission.
What’s been beautiful is that we’re attracting a lot of talent who are interested in living that mission. Some of our hires recently have come from the nonprofit space and are better aligned to us than if we hired a banker, for instance. I believe bankers can be reformed as credit unionists, if you will, but this mission alignment has been really good for us.
On the overlap between Catholic and cooperative values …
If you look at Catholic social teachings and cooperative principles and values, there’s some commonality, like solidarity, self-help, and self-responsibility. I saw some overlapping themes between the two and quickly realized the cooperative space offered me the principles and values I was looking for in an organization.
On his credit union mentor …
Amy Downs, the retired CEO of Allegiance, recruited me, saw potential in me, and saw a potential successor in me. I went from WEOKIE briefly to TruStage to becoming a senior executive at Allegiance. Amy poured so much education and mentoring into me that I would not be a CEO if it wasn’t for her tutelage.
On purpose inside the office …
We want to authentically live our mission, vision, and values. We’re trying to use an impact certificate as an avenue to attract values-driven investors and depositors who want their money to do good in the community. One thing about the region is we have more nonprofits per capita than a lot of other spaces. We also have a little higher-than-average income levels in our community — our biggest employer here is the Mayo clinic. So being in a highly altruistic community that’s supportive of nonprofits, it feels like there’s an appetite in our community.
On purpose outside the office …
We’ve started Meaningful Mornings to create a space not just in the office but for people across the community who want to have conversations around meaning and purpose. Regardless of age, I think it’s true across the board that we’re kind of at an inflection point in society where a lot of us are wanting more out of life than that 8:00 to 5:00.
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On paying it forward …
From an industry perspective, I believe my leadership as a CEO provides the most unique impact in advancing the credit union difference—mentoring leaders, supporting the Credit Union Development Education (DE) program, and helping others integrate cooperative principles into their work. Through facilitating and mentoring DE, co-leading the Minnesota Credit Union Network’s Exploring Why Workshop, and offering the principles and philosophy training at First Alliance Credit Union, I work to inspire and equip others to carry this movement forward.
Internally, it’s about providing the team opportunities through education, access, and conversation. We invest heavily in our training budget to provide staff access to the movement. We’re not a CDFI yet — we’re potentially working toward that — but community development is our primary purpose. We’re trying to expose our team to community development work within the credit union movement — providing opportunities for DE, for attending conferences like Opportunity Finance Network, Inclusiv, the African American Credit Union Coalition conference, or the NLCUP conference.
On commonalities between leadership in education and credit unions …
There are leadership lessons that come out of teaching middle school that are applicable to my day-to-day work — the biggest one is leaning in with curiosity.
The most interesting thing about middle-schoolers is that out of the spectrum of secondary education, middle-schoolers want the most autonomy and want to be treated like adults — even more than most high schoolers, in a lot of cases. They’re at that stage of life where they’re learning how to lean in with curiosity and learning how to listen, and that applies to leading adults.
Followership is the most important thing missing from leadership. Part of being a good follower is open-ended questions, listening to understand, and leaning in with curiosity. For me, that was the most valuable lesson from teaching middle school.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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