Interim CEO of Conserved Municipal Credit Union, Kay Woods, to Retire

Kay Woods, interim CEO for the conserved $3 billion Municipal Credit Union in New York City, plans to retire at the end of March after a long career serving as one of the industry’s top turnaround specialists, the NCUA confirmed Wednesday.

“Since Kay’s departure was planned, we are able to smoothly transition to Jane Dobbs, currently servicing as the executive vice president at Municipal,” the NCUA said in statement. “Jane will lead the conservatorship team upon Ms. Woods’ retirement.”

Woods did not respond to CU Times‘ request for comment.

She was named interim CEO in May 2019 when New York’s oldest credit union was placed into conservatorship. Woods replaced Mark Ricca, who served as the CEO for just eight months after criminal charges were brought against former MCU President/CEO Kam Wong in October 2018. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced in June 2019 to a five-and-a-half-year prison sentence for embezzling nearly $10 million from the credit union.

The fallout of the massive fraud and corruption case continued for MCU when in October 2019, federal prosecutors filed multiple criminal charges against Sylvia Ash, a judge of the Kings County Supreme Court and former chair of the board of directors of MCU, and Joseph Guagliardo, a retired New York City cop and former member of MCU’s supervisory committee.

Ash has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice stemming from a scheme to impede a federal investigation into fraud and corruption at MCU. Guagliardo will be sentenced in April after he pleaded guilty earlier this year to embezzling more than $400,000 from the credit union.

The beleaguered MCU posted a net income loss of $82.7 million at the end of last year’s fourth quarter. However, the credit union’s net income losses have declined from a high of $123 million at the end of last year’s second quarter and $113 million in the third quarter.

Although MCU lost more than 17,000 members (581,533 in June 2018 to 563,956 in September 2019), the credit union has managed to increase its membership by 8,357 for a total of 572,313 by the end of last year. MCU serves more members than any other New York-based credit union, including the state’s largest credit union by assets, the $9.4 billion Bethpage Federal Credit Union, which serves 414,044 members primarily throughout Long Island and New York City.

Woods is credited with bringing the $1.4 billion Arrowhead Central Credit Union in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., out of its three-year conservatorship from 2010 to 2013. The credit union lost nearly $50 million in 2009 and $3.7 million in 2010. By the end of 2011, 2012 and 2013, Arrowhead Central posted net income gains of $25 million, $25.5 million and $22.4 million, respectively.

During Woods’ tenure at Arrowhead Central, she closed six branches, saying it was necessary to improve the credit union’s infrastructure and service delivery options.

Likewise, Woods shut down six MCU branches at the end of January in an effort to streamline operations.

The turnaround executive also served as interim CEO of the $1.6 billion Texans Credit Union, which was placed in conservatorship on April 15, 2011 by the NCUA because the Richardson, Texas-based credit union was crippled by mounting commercial loan losses. At the end of 2011, the credit union recorded a net income loss of more than $88 million.

By December 2012, Texans CU posted a net income gain of $24.1 million.

Interestingly enough, Dobbs worked with Woods to turnaround these two credit unions.

Dobbs served as chief retail officer for Arrowhead Central for nearly a year and as chief retail officer at Texans CU for nearly two years, according to her LinkedIn profile page.

Before joining Woods at MCU in May 2019, she was president/CEO of the $435 million Canyon State Credit Union in Phoenix for more than five years.