Episode 47: Pocket Change Podcast
"We really keep the member at the heart of everything we do," said Swims. "It really is true... a passionate member-centric organization that really does the right thing for the right reasons."
Summary
Key Takeaways
- Leaders is a growing credit union with more than 80,000 members across West Tennessee.
- Leaders with Love is an annual initiative where Financial Champions complete service projects for those in need in our community.
- Leaders will be upgrading their technology in 2025, including a new core banking platform that will improve the overall member experience.
- A new branch is opening in Arlington, TN in January 2025.
The Pocket Change Podcast is presented by Leaders Credit Union.
To learn more about Leaders Credit Union, visit our website or learn the benefits of becoming a member.
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Full Transcript
Shea:
Hey, this is Shea.
Carrie:
And this is Carrie.
Shea:
Welcome to the Pocket Change podcast.
Carrie:
Where you'll learn better ways to spend, save, and invest, and take control of your financial journey.
Shea:
So, Carrie, we're wrapping up the year, and at Leaders, there's always a lot of activity, a lot of great things we're doing, and especially for one program we get to do every holiday season.
Carrie:
That's right. So we love to talk about our project that we are involved in every year, the Leaders with Love. That's one of my favorite things about working here at Leaders, is that each department and branch gets to be a part of the selecting process of which nonprofit they're going to help each year. It's a lot of fun.
Shea:
We get together, we volunteer, we support nonprofits and different community organizations to give back and to make an impact. So this episode will be all about the impact that we try to make each day, not just with the community, but with our members, and looking back on 2024 and how it will impact in 2025.
Carrie:
That's right. I'm looking forward to it. We're excited to welcome our guest, Todd Swims, President and CEO of Leaders Credit Union, to the podcast. Welcome to Pocket Change, Todd.
Todd Swims:
Oh wow, listen, thank you. I'm excited to be here today. It's a great day, amd I get to come back for the second time, right?
Carrie:
Yeah, we're happy to have you back on.
Shea:
A repeat guest.
Carrie:
Yeah. Can you tell us what makes Leaders Credit Union unique and different from others?
Todd Swims:
Oh, that's an easy question. There's so many answers, to be honest with you. As a nonprofit cooperative, one thing that I think is so special about Leaders is that we really keep the member at the heart of everything we do. It really is true. I love that aspect of Leaders and being able to reinvest in the member and really make sure that their financial lives and their financial journey is where it needs to be. That's a big piece of it. I also think that with that, it allows us to be really a passionate member-centric organization that really does the right thing for the right reasons.
Shea:
Todd, you've been a leader for 34 years now. What is something you're most proud of?
Todd Swims:
Yeah, Shea you were two?
Shea:
Yeah, exactly.
Todd Swims:
Wow, you had to bring that up. 34 years, it's unbelievable, but I will tell you, I think that Leaders has been extremely blessed with having really great talent here that has a heart and a passion for others. I think I'm really the most proud of our people. They genuinely care, and they genuinely want to help folks solve problems as they navigate through life in that financial journey, but I'm also really proud of the fact that we have been a very focused credit union on growing and to make sure that people all over West Tennessee really understand that there's an option, there's an alternative to banking. Hopefully, they choose us. At least that's the goal, right?
Shea:
That's right.
Carrie:
That's right. As we are nearing the end of the year, can you give us a little reflection on 2024 and the overall health of the credit union?
Todd Swims:
Yeah. Leaders has been... We've experienced such growth over the last 10 years, but this past year has been very much the same. We've had a lot of great growth. We have members now that total over 80,000 members in West Tennessee, which is just incredible. That's great. I think the health of any organization is always measured by several things. One of those is really strong financial performance and balance sheet management, but more than that, I think that what I'm most proud of as far as reflecting on this past year is really that we have had so many new people come to Leaders, so many families over West Tennessee that have chosen Leaders as really their place to do banking and to develop a financial relationship with. I think I was looking at some numbers just the other day, and so far this year, and this would be through October, we actually have had over 5,000 people to come, new folks, new families, to actually join Leaders. So that's nice, that they saw something that was relevant in their life. They would choose us, choose us first.
Shea:
So recently, you were named Best Banker by VIP Jackson magazine. So tell us what that means to you.
Todd Swims:
Well, not so sure that I deserve it. Okay, I just want to say that at the front. I will I want to show you that maybe it's a reflection of really a shared honor with other folks here at Leaders. We have such great financial champions that are always ready to do the right thing. I think so many times that at the heart of what we do and what I feel like we should do every day is to really stand in the gap for our members and to really make sure that whether it's an opportunity that is before our members, that we make sure that we help them navigate through that opportunity the most productively and with the best outcome. Then there's always those challenges, right? Life throws you a curve ball occasionally, right? We have to make sure that as bankers and as financial champions, that we are helping those folks navigate through those difficult times with really better solutions, and really the most affordable solutions to be able to do that and do it well.
Carrie:
So we know for this time of year, our financial champions give back to our communities with our annual Leaders with Love project. Why do you feel that it's important that we give back to our community in this way?
Todd Swims:
Oh, wow. It is that time of year. I think that for Leaders, it's important for us to be a part of the communities, all communities that we serve, and we want to do that every day, right? We want to do it every month of every year. This is just a really great opportunity for Leaders to really reinvest in these communities, but I think more than that, it's also an opportunity for us to really practice at being really good stewards and being good citizens, right? Being those folks who really see those opportunities that come along every single day. As we navigate through life, my belief is that the opportunities that God puts before us are unique, and they really are special, and they are those opportunities that we should act upon always, right? With the Leaders with Love project at this time of year, it really allows us to practice, exercise that, right? To really look for those opportunities that are in our path every single day. I love that particular, that aspect of the entire program, but I also really love the fact that the community gets to see our This is the time of year when we all have those special people in our lives that are on our minds.
Todd Swims:
And we also know that there's a great need in our communities, in our families, and in our workplace. It's such a fun project. It is. It gives everybody an opportunity.
Carrie:
It's great to be a part of it.
Todd Swims:
Yeah, to be a part of it. Absolutely.
Shea:
How does Leaders with Love fit with the overall mission of the credit union?
Todd Swims:
Yeah, our mission of empowering people's passions and making their lives better is central to everything that we do. When you really think about our mission, our core mission is to really make sure that we are passionately serving others and that we're giving back and improving their lives. When you really think about how Leaders can be really not only a place where you may can get a good car loan or find a good mortgage loan or maybe even a good investment, but you can find people who are genuinely caring about what's happening in my life and what's happening in the lives of my neighbor and my friends. So it demonstrates really who we are in that real core mission of what we try to do every single day.
Carrie:
Yeah, I would agree with that. So I know there are so you need to choose from, but what are some of your favorite projects from past years of Leaders with Love?
Todd Swims:
All of them. All of them, I'm telling you, and I've thought about that before because they're all so unique. When you really think about it, what's special about these projects that we do, and I'm going to refer a little bit back to what I said earlier, is that in each of these communities, in each of these areas where these teams are involved in trying to identify really something good that they can do, some give back that they can make to their community, what I think is so special about it is that something is happening in their life that makes them more aware of a particular need, and it's very unique and it's very relevant that community, or it's very relevant in their lives. So we've had so many special projects throughout the years. I think I've described one before where we had a man who actually used to visit Leaders on a little motorized scooter, and his scooter broke down, and the folks in that area and that branch actually thought, "Hey, we need to raise some money to help him out," right? That was pretty special, but there's so many things, so many needs in our community that each of us sees.
Todd Swims:
So as a team, we can agree to identify something that's unique to the community that is special and where the greatest need is and to provide something really special there.
Shea:
I think that's true, and as we look into 2025, talked a little bit about 2024, but moving into the new year, what are you most excited about?
Todd Swims:
Oh, wow. We've got a big year coming up. I think this is the year where Leaders is really making a big investment in technology. To be honest with you, we're going to be looking at replacing our core, and I'm excited about that because it's going to allow us to actually have an open core that allows us to really bring best-of-breed technology to our members so that it improves their life, saves them time and money, and I also think it's going to make us more efficient. When you think about the efficiencies that technology brings to the table these days, it's really unlimited. Being able to take advantage of really those efficiencies of that new technology, that new core will bring is going to be pretty special. Just to clarify a core in the banking industry, it's really the foundation in which everything is built upon. When you think about when you're making a deposit, you're making withdrawal calls, you're interacting with your technology, whether it's on your phone, whether it's on really your laptop, you're accessing really the central system of banking. Being able to have an open system is going to be extremely extremely important because it is going to allow us to do so many great things there.
Todd Swims:
I also believe that with this new technology that we're investing in in 2025, we will really see some significant changes to things that maybe we've had to work around. Does that make sense? I think that we'll be able to incorporate more seamless solutions for our members and ease of access. It's going to be a great year. It's going to be a challenging year, but it's going to be a great year.
Shea:
So stay tuned because there'll be a lot more to say about that in 2025, but it's going to be good.
Carrie:
For sure. We're excited about that and just another way of how we are always trying to improve ourselves.
Todd Swims:
Oh, absolutely, but when you really think about today and the pace at which technology is really advancing and AI and all those different things, we have to be able to embrace those new technologies to really make a difference. So this is It's going to give us that opportunity. It's going to give us that foundation that we need to really make sure that we can take advantage of those opportunities that come along our way.
Carrie:
That's right.
Todd Swims:
One other thing that I'm really excited about, too, quite frankly, is we have a new branch that we're opening up in Arlington, Tennessee. It's going to be open this month. We're excited about opening the doors to that community. For sure, next year, seeing great things come out of that particular location as well. An awful lot of great things happening in 2025. Stay tuned, right?
Carrie:
Mm-hmm. What is the best financial advice you've ever been given?
Todd Swims:
I guess the best advice would probably be, and I've had a lot of that over my life, but I think it's making sure that we invest well our time, our talent, and our resources. Those are things that you need to question every single day of your life. For me, what am I going to invest in today with my time? What am I going to do with that time? Then when I really think about the resources and the talent that God has given me, how do I actually invest that today? Then, of course, we all have a little money. God's blessed us with income, and so how do we actually make sure that we're good stewards of that? Making sure those are priorities in my life, I think, is the best advice. Really, this came from my father that he gave me, so I try to practice that.
Carrie:
That's great advice.
Shea:
The last question, since this is the Pocket Change podcast, if you had any extra change in your pocket, what would you spend it on?
Todd Swims:
Yeah, Shea, how much change are we talking about?
Shea:
Just the quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies.
Todd Swims:
Yeah, right. Well, I think what I would do with it is look for an opportunity to make somebody's day, right? Maybe give it away. There's always somebody in front of you that can do a little something for and make their day. So that's what I would do.
Shea:
Pay it forward.
Todd Swims:
Yeah, pay it forward. Absolutely.
Carrie:
That's great. Well, thank you, Todd, for being a guest on the Pocket Change podcast today. We enjoyed having you.
Todd Swims:
Thank you very much. Enjoyed it so much.
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