“Moving on Up,” the path from Lending Manager to Chief Lending Officer
by. Bill Vogeney
At this year’s Lending Council conference, my good friend Keith Reynolds from CEFCU and I did a panel discussion on this very topic, offering advice to mid-level lending managers who want to take a step up to the Chief Lending Officer role. We had a great time answering questions from the audience and from our moderator, Matt Vance, a young credit union profession and member of the Cooperative Trust (Crashers). Here are some of the highlights from the session:
- You can’t afford to be the Chief Approval Officer. This is a term Keith coined a few years ago, and it illustrates that the CLO can’t afford to spend much time in making loan decisions. There are way too many other, more important responsibilities if you want to be successful.
- Understand your business model. How does your credit union build business? Are you a big Indirect shop? Do you utilize third parties for much of your origination? Do you have a solid sales culture, or do you compete on a high level of service? Another way of looking at this is “what’s your lending DNA?” One of the specifics we discussed was sub-prime lending. Potentially an area that can create growth for many credit unions, any given credit union may not have the collections talent and underwriting ability to do sub-prime lending well.
- Find a way to make yourself a seat at the table during strategic planning discussions. A fault of many credit unions is not involving the CLO in strategic planning. I’ve heard of too many credit unions that developed a plan requiring a high level of growth that the lending side can’t deliver with their resources and core competencies.