Shared Accounts With CU Times: The Protector-in-Chief
Simone Suri oversees legal, risk, compliance, audit and fraud for Members Cooperative CU, but enforcing rules is just one part of her story.
Legal, risk, compliance, audit, fraud … these are some heavy-duty areas of business at a credit union with major implications. So how can one executive manage it all?
Enter Simone Suri, SVP, Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel for the $1.1 billion Members Cooperative Credit Union based in Duluth, Minn. After starting her career as an attorney for a law firm whose clients included credit unions, she joined the Minnesota Credit Union Network as General Counsel and VP of Human Resources, where she became hooked on the credit union mission. Eager to “own things” as opposed to servicing credit unions from the outside, she jumped on an opportunity at Members Cooperative in 2010 and never looked back.
In this episode of Shared Accounts With CU Times, Suri shares the biggest legal, risk, compliance and cybersecurity challenges facing credit union leaders today; how she creates an organization-wide culture of risk management that even creative types embrace; and how federal and state examinations have evolved over the years. She also speaks candidly about some of the difficulties credit unions face in their quest to build diverse boards.
Plus, Suri reveals the one activity that helps her maintain work/life balance, discusses how her first-ever job helped prepare her for a career in credit unions, and pays homage to her Midwestern roots. It’s a lively, insightful conversation you don’t want to miss!