Kristi Kenworthy, Dora Financial LLC: During the past year, Dora Financial Managing Director Kristi Kenworthy’s greatest professional accomplishment has been bringing the Dora Financial concept to life. Dora Financial is an all-digital bilingual banking experience designed to help the 50 million unbanked or underbanked Americans gain access to mainstream financial products and services. Kenworthy and the Dora Financial CUSO board developed the Dora brand, built a custom mobile application, designed the bilingual experience, developed the core product, obtained Bank On certification and established a digital presence. Since launching Dora Financial last year, more than 4,400 Dora Everyday Checking Accounts have been established. The impact of Dora’s mission was realized quickly when the team was asked to help a domestic violence victim set up an account, obtain a digital debit card and redirect her direct deposit funds. Later, the woman wrote a moving testimonial note to the Dora team outlining how this was the first step in changing her life.
Ryan Coleman, Equifax: Ryan Coleman, business development manager, consumer finance, at Equifax Verification Services, prioritizes staying ahead of financial industry trends so he can best serve credit unions and their members with product innovations. Recently, Coleman recognized the potential for Equifax’s The Work Number database to help credit unions create more efficient processes, allowing CUs to devote more time to serving members. The database provides credentialed verifiers with access to income and employment data for more than 573 million records to facilitate faster credit and benefit decisions. Coleman is a champion for the product and regularly attends client meetings and tradeshows to discuss The Work Number. Described as a critical thinker who leads by example, Coleman says his greatest professional accomplishment during the past 12 months was partnering with two credit union leaders to launch a credit-union-specific sales organization and business development function that has grown the portfolio by 50% year over year.
Chuck Fagan, PSCU: The evolution of Payment Systems for Credit Unions (PSCU) has rapidly accelerated under President/CEO Chuck Fagan’s leadership over the past seven years, and his foresight has helped PSCU evolve from a payments processing reseller to an integrated financial technology solutions provider. 2022 marks the third year of PSCU’s three-year, $100 million investment launched under Fagan’s leadership to invest in solutions, technology and infrastructure to help its credit unions remain competitive and grow. Among the investments spearheaded by Fagan is a partnership with Amount, which provides a cloud-based lending origination and account opening solution. PSCU also launched a digital consulting practice within its Advisors Plus consulting group and enabled cryptocurrency capabilities with a microsite curated for credit unions and a partnership with cryptocurrency exchange Bakkt. PSCU’s recent acquisition of Juniper Payments will enable PSCU and its credit unions to participate in faster payments innovation, providing its financial institutions with managed connectivity to the Federal Reserve, The Clearing House and the forthcoming FedNow service.
Joe Welu, Total Expert: For most of his 20-year career, Total Expert founder Joe Welu has been immersed in the real estate and financial services industries and has developed a focus on using technology as a foundation for banks, lenders and credit unions to grow their business. To restore a focus on relationships that he found to be diminishing, Welu spoke with credit union and mortgage lending CMOs and loan officers to understand their needs. The result was Total Expert’s enterprise-level marketing and sales solution built specifically for banks and mortgage lenders that re-humanizes complex financial decisions with targeted, automated and personal communications. Total Expert also recently launched Customer Intelligence, which surfaces borrower intent using consumer insights and signals within the Total Expert platform. Using Customer Intelligence, loan officers and advisors can receive recommended actions and pre-built workflows and campaigns based on key customer insights, allowing them to easily engage and advise borrowers on the best loan product for their financial situation.
We are pleased to continue our presentation of the LUMINARIES Class of 2022 Finalists, who are being recognized this year for the many dynamic and inclusive ways they are driving the credit union industry forward.
The finalists were selected by our editorial team from stellar nominations submitted in four award categories: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Executive Leadership, Innovation in Technology and Product Innovation.
This slideshow highlights the four finalists from our Product Innovation: Individual Executives category. This is a group of executives focused on the development and execution of unique strategies and solutions to benefit the credit union system.
The LUMINARIES Class of 2022 Finalists recently were reviewed by a diverse panel of judges from across the credit union industry, and a select group of winners will be announced on stage at the program’s first awards dinner and gala — set to take place Nov. 9 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, D.C.
