Credit union CEO wants to see more women at the top

Head of Meridian discusses her career journey and what it says about diversity in the financial sector

Given their smaller size, credit unions are often more willing than traditional banks to tap internal staff to take on projects that extend beyond their job description, and through those opportunities a more diverse leadership pool often emerges.

That is, at least, what happened to Meridian Credit Union president and CEO Jay-Ann Gilfoy, who doubts she would be in an executive position had she spent her career with a big bank.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in social sciences at McMaster University and completing a postgraduate degree in human resources management at Humber College in 1988, Gilfoy, who was born in St. John, N.B., and raised in Brampton, worked in HR at several large organizations, including Rogers and the B.C. Lottery Corporation.

By the time she arrived at her first credit union, Coast Capital Savings, in 2007, Gilfoy had climbed to a VP-level role, putting her in a leadership position as the company undertook a large digital transformation effort. As the company sought to better integrate its technology with its people, it looked to its HR leaders to manage the change.

“I took on more of an operational

Meridian Credit Union CEO Jay-Ann Gilfoy doubts she would be in an executive position had she spent her career with a big bank

transformational role, which added to my portfolio in HR,” Gilfoy says. “It was one of those massive projects that was behind schedule, over budget, with lots of complexity, so I led that for about three years.”

With her first successful digital transformation project behind her, Gilfoy left Coast Capital to work for a second credit union, Vancity Community Investment Bank, as it undertook a similar project in 2014. This time, however, Gilfoy accepted her first position outside of the HR practice, as vice-president of digital solutions and business technology. In 2018, she was promoted to CEO of Vancity, and in 2022 she accepted the top job at Ontario’s largest credit union, as president and CEO of Meridian.

The credit union was created in 2005 through the merger of Niagara Credit Union and the HEPCOE Credit Union. Today, Meridian provides traditional banking products across its 87 branches in Ontario, and nationwide through its digital subsidiary Motusbank. The credit union’s 2,000 employees manage $30 billion in assets on behalf of its nearly 400,000 members.

Gilfoy recently spoke to the Star about her career journey and what it says about diversity in the financial sector, what makes credit unions unique from other financial institutions and her best advice for women who aspire to leadership roles in any industry.

Why do you think Coast Capital looked to you, then a VP of HR, to manage its digital transformation project?

At the time that I took over the leadership of the transformation, it had been an IT-driven strategy with an IT-driven focus, and it was fraught with complications. My goal was to integrate the technology with the business, layering in things like proper training and change management.

When technology projects go wrong, it’s typically because they haven’t been thought of at an enterprise level. If you think about getting all the right people involved and having the right governance and oversight, your chances of success increase.

How significant was that project in shaping the rest of your career?

It was difficult enough to get to be a vice-president or chief people officer. In HR there are a lot of smart, capable people. Then to switch careers and move into different functions you need to take a pretty big risk, and take on things you’re not an expert in. It’s a tricky thing to do, but I certainly think in a much larger organization for sure it would have been harder.

How did your background in HR contribute to your leadership style?

I was always a business person first — I love learning about the business — and I saw HR as a critical component of an organization way back in the ’90s, which gave me lots of strategic insight into people, processes and technology.

You really have to recognize how to be a leader when you aren’t an expert in something. What kind of questions do you ask? How do you inspire? How do you get people to agree on the best way to solve problems quickly? How do you communicate that to boards of directors and to other stakeholders? Having a background in understanding people and understanding the tools that help develop leaders was a good thing for me.

How does a credit union differ from a traditional bank, and why should Canadians choose the former over the latter?

A credit union has almost everything that you would get at a big bank. We don’t have a big capital markets group, but we have core services in retail banking, commercial banking and wealth management.

We’re different in two big ways. One, we are owned by our members. When you bank with us, you become a member, and therefore become an owner. Second, we were born out of community needs that people felt they weren’t getting from the big financial institutions. In our case, it was a combination of farmers who couldn’t get financing to farm in the Niagara region, and hydro employees who felt that they could get a better experience by supporting each other.

As a credit union our model allows us to take a longer-term view because we don’t have quarterly targets that we have to live by, so we can make big investments. Last year, for example, we made a big investment in becoming a living wage employer — the largest one in Ontario. That will cost us money, but we felt it was the right thing to do. So, it allows us to do things that are that are not just in the interest of financial returns, but also things that are going to help make our communities stronger.

Why might that environment be more conducive to developing a more diverse workforce?

Credit unions are co-operatives and co-operatives follow a set of principles. There’s seven of them, and one of them is about equity, so it’s kind of in the DNA of the organization by design.

Second, if you look at the stats on any financial services organization, most of the workforce tends to be women — it’s female dominated in terms of your front-line staff and your support functions. Being a cooperative and being predominantly female has led to more inclusive cultures at credit unions.

Furthermore, if you look at the governance structures of co-operatives, many of the directors are voted in by members, and I think that democratic process also leads to more women at the director level, which sets the tone from the top down. Right now, about 30 per cent of CEOs and 34 per cent of board positions are held by women across the sector. By comparison, there are currently no female CEOs at Canada’s large banks.

What are you doing to leave the door open for the next generation of diverse leaders?

We’re currently doing an assessment of all leaders, and through that review process we’ve identified what we call “enterprise leaders” — many of them women, but some men — that we see as potential future leaders. Now the question is how do we make sure we’re giving them those opportunities to round out their experience? That’s the process we’re in now.

I personally want to create a council of leaders for me to mentor. I’m already having individual conversations with the folks who report to the folks who report to me, and the next step would be to formalize that, because I would love nothing more than the next leader to come from within the organization.

‘‘ I was always a business person first — I love learning about the business — and I saw HR as a critical component of an organization way back in the ’90s, which gave me lots of strategic insight into people, processes and technology.

What advice do you have for other women who aspire to leadership positions?

JAY-ANN GILFOY MERIDIAN CREDIT UNION PRESIDENT AND CEO

One of the big lessons for me, and one I hear from women all the time, is don’t wait until you’re absolutely ready to say “yes.” If somebody says to you, “Hey, I think you could do this, say ‘yes.’ ”

Saying “yes” is something that women often are hesitant to do when they’re not the expert, but you’ve got to be willing to do it anyway.

THIS INTERVIEW HAS BEEN EDITED AND CONDENSED.