Continuing pricing pressures combined with a shrinking financial talent pool has caused many finance leaders to take a second look at their strategies for finding top employees — as well as what skills those candidates need to have.

In searching out talent, it’s definitely important to find candidates with the right mix of skills, “but to me, more importantly it’s, ‘do they have the right culture?’” said Allyson Hill, CFO of Golden 1 Credit Union. The Sacramento, California-based Golden 1 operates more than $20 billion in assets and is one of the nation’s biggest credit unions, according to its website.

“As a credit union, we operate a little bit differently than a bank, definitely, so someone that may have succeeded at a bank, may not succeed at a credit union,” Hill told CFO Dive in an interview.

Meshing with the company culture 

Finding employees who are the right cultural fit can help to build stronger finance teams at a time when the accounting profession, for instance, is grappling with critical staffing shortages.

In seeking to secure candidates for the finance team at a credit union, strong analytical and traditional finance skills are as critical as ever, Hill said. However, unlike a bank, at credit unions, “there are no shareholders,” she said. “Everything that we do is based on the success of our collective membership base.”

For example, the “pure math” the finance team looks at may suggest a certain option, but the best path forward for “our collective membership may be a tweak or a slight degree change” from those figures, she said. Potential employees must carry that membership focus in mind, she said, which requires critical insight as well as financial skills.  

As finance chiefs vie for skilled additions to their teams, “culture” is also increasingly becoming a sticking point — a positive work culture can help entice employees to choose one job over another, CFO Dive previously reported. More candidates are looking to ensure they feel a sense of purpose in their work, making supportive leaders and managers a key draw.

As a finance leader, Hill encourages a collaborative approach, including leaving room for independent decision-making with her teams, as well as advocating for working cross-functionally with other departments inside of the credit union, she said.

“I love to challenge my team really a lot: [to] allow them to try and work through problems ahead of me,” she said. Still, as the top financial leader, it’s also important for her to have a “big voice” when it comes to some decisions, Hill said.

“Given my role, I have to have a very strong voice in a lot of different areas bigger than my core area focus, because at the end of the day, decisions that are made within other areas can dramatically impact our financial performance,” Hill said.

Prepping for the next tech shift  

A key focus for Hill in today’s murky environment is “definitely making sure we have the right talent in the right spaces,” she said. For example, the credit union has broadened its IT and cybersecurity area over the past few years, something that will likely continue to be a focus for the credit union moving forward, Hill said.

A 13-year veteran of the Sacramento, California-based credit union, Hill first joined as its vice president and controller. She has served as Golden 1’s CFO for eight years, starting in June 2017, according to her LinkedIn profile. Prior to Golden 1, she began her career at Big Four accounting firm KPMG on the audit side of the house, leaving as a senior manager after 10 years.

Hill has weathered the peaks and valleys of the banking industry during her long career in the space. Coming into a “pretty rosy” banking atmosphere during her first years out of school, Hill experienced the 2008 Great Recession externally and saw it “really dramatically impact a lot of companies,” she said. “What that taught me is really diversification, being able to be fluid, flexible, being able to pivot. Don’t have all your eggs in one basket.”

In recent years following the pandemic, keeping strong controls over liquidity and interest rate risks have become top of mind for Hill as a financial leader, she said. Emerging technologies are also a key focus for the credit union.

As a financial entity which has existed since 1933, Golden 1 has seen dramatic technological changes, but when confronting the potential of new tools such as artificial intelligence, it’s important to consider how that new tool could impact member experience and the credit union’s overall ability to make decisions, Hill said.

“Technology is something that is always our asset, always our friend,” she said. “But how do we minimize all those touch points to make sure we have a seamless experience for our members, and how can we utilize that to make decisions faster as well?”