CUES 123: Leadership and Learning Are Indispensable to Each Other—an Interview with Alex Hsu, CCM

CUES Podcast

In a speech prepared for John F. Kennedy to be given on that fateful day in Dallas in 1963, we were to be reminded that “leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”

In this episode of the CUES Podcast, the 2021 CUES Emerging Leader, CUES member Alex Hsu, CCM, cites this quote as among his favorites. And he lives it.

“When I completed my Gallup Strengths Assessment, for instance, my top strength was achiever, which is great for someone who leads projects, right?” says Hsu, VP/strategy and change management for $25 billion SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union outside of Los Angeles. “And my second top strength was learner. So really, throughout my career, I’ve sought to blend learning into everything that I do, which included going to grad school while working full-time and also pursuing these certificates” in everything from IT to change management to diversity.

Hsu won the CUES Emerge challenge with a project about how to establish a “Center of Innovation” at a credit union. He says he designed his project for his own credit union to consider but also built it to be flexible so that other credit unions, including small ones, could use the same template.

Hsu seems happy to have won a seat to continue learning for CUES Advanced Management Program from Cornell University as part of the CUES Emerge program. In the show he also describes how the 2021 CUES Emerge cohort interacted during the learning and competition phases of the competition, as well as what they’re doing now to stay in touch.

The show also gets into:

• Hsu’s thoughts on how to best manage change;
• The value of having a structure to support innovation at your credit union
• The challenge of staying ahead of members’ needs in an Amazon world; and
• Hsu’s readiness to talk with other credit union leaders about building a Center for Innovation and change management.

Links for this show:

• Transcript
• CUES Emerge overview (with pitch show video toward the bottom of the page)
• More about Hsu’s business case
• Become a CUESolutions provider
• Become a CUES Supplier member