AMARILLO, Texas-The new CEO at $30-million Texas Plains FCU plans says her management philosophy weighs heavily toward listening, including to frontline staff many executives might overlook.
"I like collaboration with the other senior managers and the staff," said Kasha Young. "They have a lot to contribute in terms of ideas on how to better serve members and improve efficiency. The tellers see what would go over well with members and what their needs are."
Before Terry McCormick retired as CEO earlier this year, he and Young worked to establish several goals for both her and the credit union. Young said the staff and board have a planning session coming up soon, and expects the result will be "goals everybody can agree on."
According to Young, the role of the CEO varies by size of the credit union, but all need to have a vision and be able to articulate it to the staff.
"We are a smaller credit union, so I am much more involved in day-to-day affairs," she said. As an example, she said she and several people share TPFCU's compliance tasks, plus it has a consultant come in once per quarter. "With regulation after regulation it is hard to keep up, or to weed out what we have to comply with and what we don't."
The Skills A CEO Needs
Asked what skill set prepares someone to be a CEO, Young's candid response was "anybody could be CEO" because there is a "lot of common sense in it." But she quickly added, "A good CEO has people skills. The CEO has to be able to deal with the staff and the membership. In addition to having some financial skills, the CEO is always looking out for the membership as a whole."
No amount of training can prepare a CEO for disasters or layoffs, Young observed. "You just get your credit union in the best position as possible so it is as prepared as possible."
Another surprise in her first weeks on the job has been the amount of support Young has received from a number of sources.
"I have been here nine years and had a good relationship with the staff, but I did not realize other credit unions would be offering support. The Texas Credit Union League has been great."
