Jennifer Oliver wants to tell you about Rize where the tagline is Beyond Banking. That’s an Irwindale CA based billion dollar institution – formerly SCE Credit Union – but Oliver says that even when she interviewed for the job she already was thinking about a name change.
SCE, by the way, stands for Southern California Edison, a big electric utility. In the show Oliver explains why she thought the name had to change.
But, importantly, this is more than a name change. Oliver, Rize’s CEO, also has put the institution on a rebranding journey where the mission becomes ending poverty.
A big idea? You bet. Here’s how Rize explains its mission and name change: “To better serve our members, we recognized the need for growth, which was challenging with our previous name. Many people don’t know what a credit union is or mistakenly believe they must work for a specific company to join ours. We sought a name that eliminates that confusion and aligns with our mission, vision and values. We believe our new name will enhance our ability to serve current members, expand our reach, and allow us to make an even greater impact for our members and our communities.”
She’s undertaking a big mission? You bet but on her way to this job Oliver put in a stint as executive vice president of Municipal Credit Union after NCUA conserved it. That happened after its CEO was arrested and later convicted for multi million dollar embezzlement and he was sentenced to a jail sentence. This was a big ugly blot on the reputation of all credit unions – and Oliver accepted the challenge to help remove the stain and keep Municipal functioning. The conservatorship team succeeded. Municipal is out of conservatorship and it still serves New York’s city employees.
So if you think Oliver is taking on a huge problem, remember she’s a veteran of the Municipal salvation.
Sprinkled through the show are many good ideas she has for helping credit unions prosper. Here’s just one: she’s created a pathway to enable foster kids to open accounts without the signature of an adult. So the money the kid earns and may receive from the state is his or hers. Getting this together needed thinking way outside of boxes – but she did it.
And talk about our backpages she was a guest on this show in 2019, episode 2. There’s a link in the show notes.
