00:31. John S.

Greetings and welcome to a very special episode of TechSolutions4CUs. Why is it so special? It's special because I will be talking with Elizabeth Osborne, who is absolutely one of my favorite credit union people of all time. Elizabeth was the Chief Operations Officer at Great Lakes Credit Union for almost 5 years But she recently left that position to join my alma mater, Jack Henry as the— and I'll see if I can get this all out in one breath— Senior Managing Director of Operations for Jack Henry's Credit Union Solutions Group. And you know what, Elizabeth? I was thinking that in all the times that we've talked, I really don't know your whole story. So maybe you can start our audience off with a little career retrospective. Perspective, if you will.   

01:30. Elizabeth O.

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, I started— let's see, I started my banking career at State Street. So I went to Northeastern University in Boston, and so like a lot of people, I then, uh, moved into State Street because at the time I think they employed like 40,000 people just in the state of Massachusetts. So big employer, uh, but it was great because it really helped me, uh, just gave me a lot of insights into technology and financial services. Very different.   

02:01. John S.

What did you go to school for?   

02:03. Elizabeth O.

So I went to school. I started— it changed a lot. I started, I was a broadcast journalism major. Oh, really?   

02:11. Elizabeth O.

I was. I wanted to be on the news.   

02:12. John S.

I could see you doing well in that.   

02:13. Elizabeth O.

Could you? Oh, thanks.   

02:15. Elizabeth O.

Yeah, I wanted to be on the news. I ran a paper at a community college I was at for a couple of years. But then I was like, I like it, but I don't know if I want to do this for my career. And so I changed. I was an accounting major for a while and I was like, this is boring.   

02:32. John S.

Boring. I cannot picture you as a bean counter.   

02:36. Elizabeth O.

Nope. Nope. And so I ended up landing in with a business degree with a focus on leadership.   

02:42. Elizabeth O.

And that was, I was like, this is it. It's exciting. It's kind of tied in everything I loved, like business law.   

02:49. John S.

You can kind of take that anywhere.   

02:51. Elizabeth O.

Exactly.   

02:52. Elizabeth O.

It was so universal. And so yeah, I joined State Street and I was part of the technology team that was dedicated to the finance division and helped implement a new global budgeting and forecasting tool. So I was one of the PMs for it and started with that and then moved to a community bank. So in the Boston area, and I started by overseeing strategic projects and vendor relationships. And then about a year later, was promoted to a CIO.   

03:28. Elizabeth O.

And so we took that bank, it was pretty cool. That was a really, I had so much fun there, was Belmont Savings Bank. And we brought it from, it was, you know, private, it was, you know, privately held, we brought it public. And so we brought it from $800 million to over $3 billion in 5 years. So that was kind of cool, all organic.   

03:49. Elizabeth O.

So, um, learned a lot in that role. And, and then, um, we were bought out, and so I joined People's United Bank, a regional bank on the East Coast, and I joined their M&A team. So I oversaw business integration for that. They were active acquirers and so led, you know, $10 billion-plus acquisitions. So that was kind of cool, learned a lot.   

04:11. Elizabeth O.

That was great.   

04:12. John S.

So at what point in your career did you realize that it was going to be tech heavy?   

04:19. Elizabeth O.

Yeah, it was, you know, it started that way at State Street because I was, I truly was like a liaison between our business partners in finance and our technology group. So I sat with our developers, sat with our programmers, and, you know, we did, because of the size, we did everything in-house. Very, very few things were through partners.   

04:40. Elizabeth O.

And so learned a lot about software development life cycles and different programming languages and just how exciting technology is and how impactful it is into the services that you can provide to, to your internal institution. You know, on that side, it was— I wasn't really like a customer focus, it was more internally based. But that's what got me into it. And then it was at Belmont I started to learn more about fintechs because that's when DCU in the Boston market started holding these sessions because they were partnered with MIT and Harvard, and they gave opportunities to these startups to make pitches to the different banks and credit unions in the market. Okay, it was cool.   

05:28. John S.

Yeah, yeah.   

05:29. Elizabeth O.

And I was like, this whole fintech thing is so cool. And it was really interesting to see just how these kind of niche services were being Roughly what year was that? That was about probably 2010 through 2012, maybe a little later. Yeah, it was around that time, maybe through 2013.   

05:54. Elizabeth O.

And so I worked for the president and COO of the bank, and he came from Citizens. And so he, in his role at Citizens, He oversaw their investment arm, and so he would go out and fly out to these startups, listen to pitches, and then decide who, who do we want to buy, and then buy them and bring them in. And so he taught me a lot about, about fintechs and like what to look for. And, uh, so yeah, that was, it was great. Then, um, when I was at Peoples, I was there for about 2 and a half years, and they were being bought out by M&T.   

06:33. Elizabeth O.

And so I was going to join M&T's— they had a change management group that was— they partnered directly with the executive team and they were responsible for driving and executing change across the divisions. But I was probably going to have to move to Buffalo. Wasn't super excited about that.   

06:53. John S.

I'm from near Buffalo.   

06:56. Elizabeth O.

You are?   

06:57. John S.

Yeah, I'm from Jamestown.   

06:59. Elizabeth O.

I didn't know that. Oh my gosh, so you know snow? How did you end up in—   

07:03. John S.

me and Lucille Ball.   

07:07. Elizabeth O.

That is so funny. How'd you end up in Southern California?   

07:10. John S.

We moved out here when, um, my parents got divorced when I was in 6th grade, and we moved out here when I was starting 9th grade because my mom's whole family was out here in San Diego.   

07:22. Elizabeth O.

Oh, that's cool. So you've been there since Yeah, yeah.   

07:26. John S.

But yeah, the, uh, we left in the— like, I started 9th grade out here, um, in 1976. In that winter, Jamestown got 14 feet of snow.   

07:39. Elizabeth O.

Oh my gosh.   

07:40. John S.

Like, yeah, I'm glad we got out of there then.   

07:43. Elizabeth O.

That's a whole— that's crazy.   

07:45. Elizabeth O.

You can't even get out of your house.   

07:47. John S.

Because, because, you know, when I was a little kid, 14 feet of snow would have been great, but I was already old enough to Or I wouldn't have wanted to deal with that.   

07:56. Elizabeth O.

Yeah, you're like, this is just not good. That's a lot. Oh yeah, no wonder you didn't want to move to Buffalo.   

08:03. Elizabeth O.

So no, but I was still working there and the acquisition, you know, takes a long time, especially People's United was over $60 billion at the time. So that's a, that's a long project. All right, think about the data conversion, right? And, um, so I was going to be part of that conversion as well. And so, um, it was during the pandemic that this was all happening.   

08:25. Elizabeth O.

And I was pregnant with our second, so my daughter, and my husband and I were like, oh, we kind of need help. You know, Boston is great, but we didn't have as much family around and cost of living is so high in Boston. And so we needed to buy a bigger house 'cause we had outgrown our current house with a second coming. And we were both working from home. And so my husband was like, why don't we move to Chicago?   

08:52. Elizabeth O.

Your family's there. We'll have more help and it's a little like low, low, little lower cost of living. Sure. And I was like, you want to move Chicago? Really?   

09:00. Elizabeth O.

I was so surprised because he's born and raised true Bostonian. Like my husband's a true Bostonian. And, um, so we started looking at houses and, uh, we put our house on the market and decided to move out here. Found a house, it was a studs only, so it was a new house that was getting built. It was like a rehab kind of thing.   

09:23. Elizabeth O.

And about a month later, a recruiter reached out to me about Great Lakes Credit Union because they're like, hey, we heard you're moving to Chicago. I think this might be of interest to you. And I was like, I don't know. Credit unions seem kind of a little slow.   

09:38. John S.

Dinky.   

09:39. Elizabeth O.

Not as fun. I was like, I don't know.   

09:42. John S.

Yeah, not as fun.   

09:44. Elizabeth O.

I clearly had no idea. And I've never been as wrong as I was then.   

09:51. Elizabeth O.

I was so wrong. And so the recruiter was like, no, no, no, trust me, you want to talk to them. Like, that is not Great Lakes Credit Union. And there's a new CEO and he's very innovative. And I'm like, okay, so I talked to them.   

10:04. John S.

This is what year?   

10:05. Elizabeth O.

This was 20— let me think about this. 2021.   

10:11. John S.

Okay.   

10:11. Elizabeth O.

2021.   

10:12. Elizabeth O.

Yep. Early 2021. And, uh, and so I was like, all right. So I started talking to their head of HR and talked to the recruiter, and I was like, wow, they're doing— they were doing some cool stuff. I love the involvement in the community.   

10:28. Elizabeth O.

They have an act, you know, they want to grow. This could be an interesting opportunity. And so because of my technology background, because this was a true chief operations officer role, not technology, so they're like, we could actually expand the role and have it where you oversee both because you have a CIO background. And I was like, now that's interesting. And so we worked together and I ended up accepting it.   

10:54. Elizabeth O.

And it turned out to be a 35-minute drive from where we had put an offer on a house. And so it all worked out.   

11:01. John S.

It all came together. Now, having worked for those gigantic organizations, was it a challenge to kind of like scale down your thinking?   

11:10. Elizabeth O.

Oh yeah, yeah, it was a big wake-up call, especially the move from State Street to Belmont.   

11:16. Elizabeth O.

So Belmont was a classic example of a sleepy bank. Like, we always called them sleepy deposits. You had large deposit holders that didn't really do— they didn't transact much. They just parked money to make money on their money. And it was in a pretty well-to-do area of Boston also.   

11:36. Elizabeth O.

And so they had not invested in infrastructure. Had not made the technology investments needed. But the new executive team that wanted to bring them public and grow was like, we need a change leader. And so it was a really interesting opportunity to build it. But I was like, wow, you are starting at bare bones.   

12:00. Elizabeth O.

There is nothing. I was used to having everything automated at your fingertips, like dashboards and You had to build it all. And so that I worked probably the hardest I've ever worked in my life at Belmont because it was, it's like bringing it, it was almost like building a business from the ground up because we completely started fresh. So yes, it was very eye-opening and also with a lot less people. I was used to having huge teams, 24/7 global teams that, you know, I had testers in India that I'd work with and in Dublin that would— I'd get results in the morning on.   

12:37. Elizabeth O.

And so it was just a very different world. But I loved the ability to move change faster. You know, when you're in a smaller institution, there's a lot less hurdles, a lot less politics. And so I was like, this is great. Like, we're able to do a lot more faster.   

12:53. Elizabeth O.

And then I can see those results. It's not a 2, 3-year-long project where you're waiting for it to finish. And if I—   

13:00. John S.

So was the whole credit union ethos a surprise to you?   

13:05. Elizabeth O.

It was, yes, because I knew credit unions and banks were very similar.   

13:11. Elizabeth O.

I didn't realize how different they are. And I probably saw more commonality to the community savings bank in Belmont than to, like, Peoples and State Street and so forth, just because they were very invested in their community. We gave back a lot of money. We volunteered and that was a great focus at Belmont. So I missed that when I was at Peoples, and I was really happy to see just how ingrained it is in the culture in credit unions.   

13:43. Elizabeth O.

And that was something I'm like, it really truly speaks to my values and what's important to me and my family. And so that really is what kind of captured my interest.   

13:55. John S.

Tell me about how your relationship with Jack Henry developed.   

13:59. Elizabeth O.

Yeah. So I knew of Jack Henry.   

14:02. Elizabeth O.

I had looked at them when I was looking at new cores on the banking side, but hadn't used them in the past. And we were— I was always like a Fiserv or FIS shop. When I started Great Lakes Credit Union, pretty early on, I had lunch with Jim Glass and Mike Ramos. So our regional manager and our account executive. Or no, it was dinner, sorry.   

14:26. Elizabeth O.

And they were like, Elizabeth, you know, we, we'd love to invite you to become part of our regional advisory board. I'm like, oh, that's a great opportunity. And they're like, you know, your insights in fintech and, you know, what you've done, it'd be a great addition. So I joined their regional advisory board and I was on that for several years. And then I transitioned to the national advisory board.   

14:50. Elizabeth O.

This is all for Symitar. And I was like, wow, this company is so forward-thinking, people first. They firmly believe in doing the right thing every time, doing whatever it takes to do the right thing.   

15:04. John S.

Do the right thing, do whatever it takes, and have fun.   

15:08. Elizabeth O.

That's exactly it.   

15:09. Elizabeth O.

You got it.   

15:10. John S.

Do they still use that?   

15:11. Elizabeth O.

They do. Yeah. I was— I just visited the San Diego office not long ago, and it's on the wall.   

15:18. Elizabeth O.

And I was like, I love this. This is so nice because my support team's over there and a lot of teams are over there. But yeah, and they really believe that. And I was really impressed with the leadership. Just they seem to really care.   

15:32. Elizabeth O.

It was— it's a different level of relationship. So I've always loved Jack Henry and I've always been a big supporter of them. And they've always— I always say there's vendors and there's partners. And there's a lot of vendors I've had in my past, but there's few partners. And Jack Henry was always a partner.   

15:50. Elizabeth O.

They were the ones I could call like, hey, I need to think, you know, I have a strategic decision to make. If you were in my shoes, what would you do? And these are— they will take the time and talk through it with you and be vendor agnostic at the same time. So I always appreciate that about them. And so I got to know Brynn very well during my time on the advisory board and when I heard that this role— one of my fintech buddies actually sent it to me.   

16:16. Elizabeth O.

I don't know if I told you this.   

16:18. John S.

He—   

16:19. Elizabeth O.

yeah, yeah, it's, uh, one of my fintech buddies sent me a text message with the job rec, and he's like, uh, I hope you applied for this because this has you like written all over it. And I was like, what? I'm like, I don't know if I want to work for a tech company.   

16:32. Elizabeth O.

I was like, I'm happy in credit unions. And he's like, well, you'd get to work with credit unions. He's like, It reports to Brynn. Like, you need to talk. And I was like, oh, it's like, okay.   

16:42. Elizabeth O.

So, and I had heard Brad had left, but I didn't really think too much of it. And so I applied and then I sent a text message to Brynn and I was like, heads up, because I know we're a client, but I just applied for this role. I just would like to learn more. You know, I'd like to understand the role more. And so she sent me like a little heart emoji.   

17:04. Elizabeth O.

Emoji back. And so we started talking, and over several months of those discussions, I decided this was the right next move.   

17:13. John S.

And your, your title now is—   

17:16. Elizabeth O.

it's kind of long. You ready?   

17:18. John S.

Well, you're, you're being recorded.   

17:21. Elizabeth O.

Yeah, it is the Senior Managing Director of Operations for Credit Union Solutions.   

17:29. John S.

Holy moly.   

17:31. Elizabeth O.

Yeah, I know, I know it's long, but it's, you know, so I'm overseeing what they consider the operation side of the credit union side of the house. So our network infrastructure, so our ease, our hosted services and our on-prem clients, the support side of the house, the ARCUs or data warehouse that we provide, those type roles.   

17:57. Elizabeth O.

fall under me, and then all the services for Symitar that go along with that.   

18:02. John S.

So I know Stephanie's on the same team as you, right? I get that.   

18:06. Elizabeth O.

She is. She's a peer of mine.   

18:08. Elizabeth O.

Yes.   

18:08. John S.

Is there anybody else on that team?   

18:11. Elizabeth O.

Yes. Robin.   

18:12. John S.

Oh, okay.   

18:13. John S.

Whitlock.   

18:14. Elizabeth O.

Yep. So the— Robin's awesome.   

18:17. John S.

Awesome team.   

18:18. Elizabeth O.

So the three of us.   

18:19. Elizabeth O.

Yes. It's an awesome team.   

18:21. John S.

Girl power.   

18:23. Elizabeth O.

Yes. Yeah, it is.   

18:25. Elizabeth O.

Which is— I love the— you know, there— we need a lot more women in tech.   

18:30. John S.

I agree.   

18:31. Elizabeth O.

There's such an opportunity there and there's not enough of us. And I think you're seeing it more on the startup side and but lesser in a lot of large organizations, especially if you look at CIOs across banks and credit unions, not a lot of women. And that to me presents a huge opportunity for the next generation.   

18:53. John S.

So how did you become such a popular speaker at events and credit union events?   

19:01. Elizabeth O.

Yeah, it kind of happens for two things I saw. One was when I testified before Congress, so the House Financial Services Committee, I testified publicly on the ethical use of AI across financial institutions and housing. And so I represented banks and credit unions.   

19:25. John S.

So how do you end up getting a gig like that?   

19:29. Elizabeth O.

That was kind of crazy. It's a cool story. Okay. So I, let me see. Previously, I was on the board of BankSocial.   

19:40. John S.

Okay.   

19:41. Elizabeth O.

And I got to know John Wingate, the founder and CEO, very well. And I had shared with him our success stories of using AI. So our Olive story. So at Great Lakes, we introduced, you know, that virtual conversational agent at the carrier level, tremendous success with it.   

20:02. Elizabeth O.

And so he had heard about it. Well, John had been in conversations with Kyle Hauptman, uh, NCUA chairman, about, uh, really the, the future of digital assets and what does that look like. And they, they have a good relationship. So Kyle had reached out to John, was like, hey, you know, the House Financial Services Committee, they're hosting some— they have a subcommittee focused on AI to really determine if additional regulation is needed for AI. Because this was back in 2023 when that was the big concern, right?   

20:38. Elizabeth O.

Are we going to have additional regs? Are we going to be handcuffed to that? What could prevent us from using these solutions? Because there's a lot of fear. Out there on the, on the technology.   

20:49. Elizabeth O.

And so John had recommended me, and, um, and so Kyle invited me to a roundtable at GAC. And it's a closed-door roundtable, the first one that he did. He's now done 3. And, uh, this roundtable is a— it started out a lot smaller, so it was like 5 or 6 credit unions and a bunch of fintechs, and we just had open discussions about are use of AI or hesitations on use of AI, why, and open discussion about it. And then also the NCUA helped talk through how we can help overcome those challenges.   

21:26. Elizabeth O.

And so it was a good partnership discussion. And so when the House Financial Services Committee reached out, again, Kyle recommended me for the subcommittee. So I was selected. So there's a few people I think that were, I don't know how I got selected, but I was selected. And this was in with America's Credit Unions.   

21:46. Elizabeth O.

So I partnered with them on it and they helped create almost like a proposal to tell our story. And so I joined a closed door session with the subcommittee. Turns out they did 6 of these. So they had 6 closed door panels with 6 representatives in each panel. So I was on one panel as one representative.   

22:10. Elizabeth O.

And then from that, the subcommittee picked one person from each panel to publicly testify. So then I was selected from that subcommittee to publicly testify. So that got a lot of press because credit unions— I mean, banks weren't represented for that public testimony. So that was a huge opportunity for us. And it was because of the great stories we have to tell on credit unions.   

22:35. Elizabeth O.

We've done so much. And it's exciting and we have great results to share. And so that opened up a lot of doors. So from there, I ended up getting, receiving a lot of requests to speak to different groups, everybody on panels and share the story. So yeah, cool.   

22:56. John S.

Now just stepping back, looking at the credit union space as a whole. What do you think are the biggest technological challenges that are common to all or most credit unions?   

23:12. Elizabeth O.

Oh, that's a big question.   

23:15. John S.

I hope you got a big answer.   

23:17. Elizabeth O.

Yeah, there's a lot.   

23:19. Elizabeth O.

And I think it— you'll see, in my experience, it varies based on the institution. Because what I see is there's— you have a subset of credit unions that are not— they have not made the investments needed to support what their members need in terms of services. And those services require technology in most cases, right? So think about where payments are going. Think about automation, efficiency, ease of use, that like Amazon effect.   

23:51. Elizabeth O.

That's a— those are table stakes. All those things are table stakes for the average consumer today. And so those institutions that have not taken the steps needed to implement that, I'm very concerned about them. That is a challenge more for that subset. For the rest, and it is, you have small institutions, you have very large institutions.   

24:15. Elizabeth O.

I think the biggest challenge they have is integration between services. How do you create that consistent member journey? That doesn't feel like you're getting handed off to a new solution. And I think about, you know, if I decide to join a credit union, I fill out my membership application, then I pick my accounts, and then I go into online banking or mobile banking, right? That look and feel, the language, the flow should be very cohesive and smooth and fast and simple.   

24:48. Elizabeth O.

And I think a lot of A lot of institutions, uh, don't have that experience today.   

24:54. John S.

And I, I might add to that, it needs to be different from everybody else too, because I think it's, it's hard to differentiate yourself in this marketplace.   

25:04. Elizabeth O.

Yeah, exactly. And that's where the Chimes of the world have, you know, they now own such a large subset of the market because they have, they've really gone out there. Now they're so large, they have the marketing dollars, they have they now have the number of customers that are able to really implement that change.   

25:24. Elizabeth O.

So if you look at the experience they have, it's so simple. They don't even ask you what kind of account you're going to open. They just say, hey, what do you want to do? And you just say, well, I have $500. Great.   

25:35. Elizabeth O.

They put it in an account for you. Then after you open that account, they don't say this is some kind of checking account or a savings or offer CDs to you. Then they say, hey, we have this great option where you can make money off your money. If you move a couple hundred dollars over here, you will earn X number of dollars on that over a year. And they just made it so simple.   

26:00. Elizabeth O.

They kind of took the hurdles and the decisioning out of it to just make it a very fluid experience. So when I was at Great Lakes, I was really trying to mimic that as much as possible.   

26:11. John S.

And I think, I think you bring up a good point because I think a lot of people think that you can just throw money to buy technology and that's going to fix things. But it's, it's really changing the way you think too. And that's even more fundamental and more important.   

26:28. Elizabeth O.

Yeah, that journey, that experience, it's so critical to the success and the adoption of it. And so that has to be figured out. And so I think when I think about, especially here at Jack Henry, How can we help that, right, to ensure that we are providing access to all the different solutions out there so they can integrate seamlessly with our application, with our core, with our pay center, whatever the case, to create that experience? That's so important. And so there are— there's a lot of credit unions out there that are focusing on that.   

27:04. Elizabeth O.

And those are the ones that are— I suspect will do very well in the future.   

27:10. John S.

Awesome. Any closing remarks for our credit union audience?   

27:15. Elizabeth O.

Yeah, I just, you know, I encourage everyone, especially women, you know, I've, in my career, I've really tried to focus on mentoring and coaching the younger generations to know that there are so many doors that can be opened. There are so many options out there.   

27:35. Elizabeth O.

And to help provide that option for them. You know, I've helped really, I've just made it a focus of mine to make sure that these potential leaders, these up-and-coming leaders of our industry, that they know what's available to them and that they have the confidence to take that risk, take that step, raise their hand to say, I want to try something new. So stretch your brain. You know, try something new, be a little uncomfortable, that's okay. Because I really believe that that will help open up a lot of doors.   

28:09. Elizabeth O.

And so I really want to make sure that we continue to see a larger number of women in leadership and in technology. That's important. I think it's important for the industry as well.   

28:22. John S.

Thank you, Elizabeth, for being on TechSolutions4CUs. This was an awesome conversation.   

28:27. John S.

I look forward to hearing from you again and again and again.   

28:31. Elizabeth O.

Always. Thank you so much, John. It was great being here, and I look forward to more conversation.