Women in Tech Yield Value for Credit Unions

While credit unions have traditionally been more diverse than other financial institutions, that parity does not extend to the technology space, experts said, an area that will become increasingly important as credit unions continue to operate virtually.

“Not many women have specifically gone into the IT field and said this is going to be my career path [into credit unions]. When you think about fintech and what we have going forward, I think that will be important,” Susan Mitchell, a consultant and founding chair of the Global Women’s Leadership Network, said.

According to a 2018 study by CUNA, about 52% of credit union CEOs are women. But there is nuance in looking at the industry’s gender makeup.

Women CEOs disproportionately lead smaller credit unions. Among credit unions with assets between $100 million and $500 million, one in five CEOs are women. That number drops even more for credit unions valued at more than a billion: Only 14% of these institutions have a female CEO.

Drilling down even further, tech roles in credit unions are likely less gender diverse, given that the space has long been dominated by men. While there are no specific statistics for women in chief technology officer or chief information officer positions in credit unions, women account for just 13% of CTOs at major financial institutions, according to consultancy Oliver Wyman.

LenderClose Chief Technology Officer Martina Schubert first stepped into the world of tech when she graduated with a degree in computer programming in 1986. She said tech has historically been dominated by men, although it is getting better.

“It’s no secret there were not a lot of women at the time,” Schubert said.

Schubert’s mother, an ex-factory worker, raised her daughters to be tough. In time, Schubert would develop this toughness as a necessary tool to advance her career. She had decided early on in her career that she wanted to become a chief information officer.

“My thinking evolved over time to where I had this hard exterior to play in the same sandbox as my male colleagues,” she said.

After going back to school for an MBA, Schubert began making her way through boardrooms. She spent three-and-a-half years as chief information officer at Continental Western Group, then a year as chief technology officer of financial services firm DLL before she decided to join LenderClose. In the executive space, she found that male colleagues often saw her toughness as aggression – a far cry, she said, from who she ­really is.

Things changed for Schubert at her last job, where she worked under DLL President Amy Ventling. For perhaps the first time in her career, Schubert felt like she was able to let down her guard. Ventling empowered her to lead her team the way she wanted to and not worry about representing the “female at the C-suite table,” allowing her to open up and shed the hard exterior she had built up out of necessity over the years.

“Somebody who would have worked with me even seven years ago would say different things about who I am,” she said. “It took that long to be comfortable in being a caring, loving female and also be a boss. I never felt like I could do that before.”

When she came to LenderClose, a startup that has created a tech tool to accelerate the lending process, it was Schubert’s first foray into credit unions. She said credit unions seem to be more diverse than former industries she’s worked in, adding that tech in particular is slowly becoming more diverse. But she hasn’t forgotten about Ventling, and her experience reminded her that allies such as her are critical to advancing women. And in turn, Schubert has always put an emphasis on mentoring others – especially women who want to work in IT.

“I have had hundreds of conversations with recruiters, and if it’s a female that’s selling they always start with, ‘How do you get to where you’re at? How do I get there?’” Schubert said. “Just seeing somebody that has done that is a big help.”

For Melissa Koch, an Akerman attorney and co-founder of compliance technology start-up InFront Compliance, having a non-traditional career path is also helpful in breaking into the space. In addition to founding her start-up alongside co-founder and tech attorney Alia Luria, Koch has long practiced law at the intersection of technology, compliance and privacy.

Koch’s introduction to technology first came in college, around the first major tech boom. She became fascinated with the early virtual tech conferences and, as a commercial attorney, realized that more and more brick-and-mortar stores were adopting point of service systems and other technologies in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

As an early tech lawyer, Koch has been able to make her own career. She’s worked remote at times before the pandemic normalized the practice. So when the opportunity to start InFront came about, she jumped on the opportunity, leveraging her decades of tech experience.

“I’ve been very fortunate to have a lot of opportunity, not just in the jobs that I’ve had but the way I’ve had them,” Koch said. “For me, as a female in this space, to be able to demonstrate that you can be successful and build a software product resets expectations of what a career can be.”

To be sure, there are women who hold powerful tech roles – Sharon Moseley, for example, is the chief information officer of the $4.8 billion Kinecta Federal Credit Union in Manhattan Beach, Calif. But Mitchell said there needs to be more.

Even before the pandemic, fintech has been becoming increasingly prominent in the credit union world. A survey released in February by Cornerstone Advisors found that 76% of the credit unions surveyed said fintech partnerships were an important part of their strategies this year and 88% of respondents said they will spend more on tech in 2020 than in 2019. Late last year, the St. Petersburg, Fla.-based CUSO PSCU announced it would invest $100 million over the next three years in technology such as Lumin Digital, its cloud-based banking platform, and contactless cards.

The novel coronavirus pandemic has only accelerated the need for adaptation: Credit unions have seen an explosion of online banking as the pandemic forced people out of their offices and into their homes. And preliminary surveys have found that things will not likely return to “business as usual” even after the pandemic.

And as tech continues to become paramount, Mitchell said credit union leaders are going to turn to tech executives to take CEO or board member roles. The Global Women’s Leadership Network is already putting together programming focused on advancing women in the tech space.

“I do think we need a carve out for tech programs,” Mitchell said. “I believe that a special focus needs to happen.”