About a decade ago, our firm met with the chairman of the NCUA to discuss succession planning. After many years of working in this industry, we were concerned about the lack of succession planning on credit union boards. Our significant in-depth experiences told us that if term limits were not established and if there were no procedures and rules put into place to ensure succession planning for board members and CEOs, as well as rotation of committee chairs, that the ability of credit unions to navigate successfully would be greatly diminished. We were years ahead of the curve on this subject.

Now, 10 years later, there is movement in this arena. In July of this year, the NCUA approved rules for incentive-based compensation as required by the Dodd-Frank Act stating that credit unions with $1 billion and above in assets, which covers 443 credit unions, must disclose and report compensation. These rules are approved, but still await comments before enactment.