LONDON-The new head of the Cooperative Trust says that the program to develop young leadership within the CU movement will see some changes now that he's aboard.
"Of course it will be different-I'm English," quipped James Marshall, the 24-year-old Londoner who recently took the helm at the Filene Research Institute-driven Cooperative Trust. Marshall succeeds Brent Dixon, who is leaving Filene and the Cooperative Trust to continue his education.
Marshall described himself as a bit "boring" compared to Dixon. While Dixon was focused on big ideas, Marshall said he tends to be a bit more pragmatic. "I'm very much about business development, and making this work and moving forward step-by-step," Marshall said.
Prior to joining the Cooperative Trust, which began its life known as the "Crashers," Marshall served as marketing manager at Plane Saver CU in London, England's fourth-largest CU.
Areas of Focus
Marshall has outlined several key pillars he hopes to focus on, starting with reinvigorating mentorship efforts to connect young CU employees with more experienced professionals. "Maybe, sometimes, we all feel a little bit lost as young people in the credit union industry ... so I want the Cooperative Trust to be someplace where we can find mentorships for those young people and help them be successful."
Those efforts are particularly important because young professionals beginning in the industry these days are statistically unlikely to make a career out of it. Marshall stressed that the movement must find ways to make young professionals successful if it hopes to retain them long-term.
"We want to give people the skills and the experience so they can stay there," he said. "At large organizations, people start to feel that they can go no further, so they move on. Let's not make that happen at credit unions. Let's give people the opportunity to go further. Once they can go further, they'll stay. They won't say 'There's nothing left.' ... Let's give the mentorships, the opportunities, the product development, community, meet-ups, et cetera. Let's find ways to keep younger people involved in the industry so they want to stay."
Creating A Community
Marshal is also looking into ways to better engage Cooperative Trust's 300 members online. That serves the purpose of creating more of a community of young professionals without the costs involved with bringing them together at CU functions around the country. On that same note, however, Marshall said that he hopes to eventually create a Cooperative Trust conference, but said that is unlikely to happen for at least three to five years.
The group first gained attention by "crashing" CUNA's Governmental Affairs Conference (GAC), and Marshall said crashing the GAC continues to be a priority for the group. Next year will mark the fifth anniversary of the first "crash" event, and Marshall said he hopes to create a splash around that and use it as a milestone to push the group forward. He declined to share details about what that "splash" might entail.
He also hopes to delve into product development as a way "to make the Cooperative Trust an organization that builds things and develops things. We might take some of the research that comes out of Filene and see what we can do with that so we can incubate new products that are relevant to the next generation of credit union employees and members." While nothing is in the pipeline at the moment, Marshall hinted at debt consolidation products aimed specifically at college graduates to help them reduce credit card debt incurred while in college.
Creating Sustainability
Perhaps most important-though less sexy than some of Marshall's other goals-is creating sustainability at the Cooperative Trust, which up until now has relied on funding from CUNA Mutual Group, CUNA's Center for Professional Development, PSCU Financial Services and others. Whether it be from grant funding, product development or sponsorships, "We want it to run itself, and not need to rely on others to make sure we're still here," said Marshall. "We're going to be here in three years; we're not going anywhere. But sustainability is one of the key points we want to drive home."
For at least his first year, Marshall will run the group from London, though other U.S.-based Cooperative Trust staffers are still in place to assist in those efforts. He expects to visit the U.S. multiple times throughout the first year-including attending GAC-and hopes to eventually relocate to Filene's headquarters in Wisconsin.
"Come the end of year one, the big plan is that I'll be in Madison and we'll move forward from there."
