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The CU2.0 Podcast
This podcast explores contemporary, critical thinking and issues impacting the nation's credit unions. What do they need to be doing to not just survive but prosper?
The CU2.0 Podcast
CU 2.0 Podcast Episode 356 The New NCUA Requirement for a Succession Plan
Are you ready to grapple with the new NCUA requirement that every credit union have an up to date succession plan that covers both senior executives and board members?
The good news: you’re not required to have a written plan until January 1, 2026.
The bad news: if you don’t have a plan by then, or if your plan falls far short of NCUA’s expectations, the credit union can be written up by an examiner.
On the show is Jeff Paille, partner in The Bonadio Group’s Assurance Division, who offers a primer on what every credit union needs to know about this NCUA requirement.
And he also talks about what will happen if you simply tell the examiner you haven’t gotten a plan together.
Incidentally, although the NCUA explicitly flagged mergers triggered by a lack of a succession plan as a prompt for this new requirement, Paille says that a common succession plan at many credit unions is in fact merger.
Listen up.
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Welcome to the CU2.0 podcast.
SPEAKER_00:Hi, and welcome to the CU2.0 podcast with big new ideas about credit unions and conversations about innovative technology with credit union and fintech leaders. This podcast is brought to you by Quillo, the real-time loan syndication network for credit unions, and by your host, longtime credit union and financial technology journalist, Robert McGarvey. And now, the CU 2.0 podcast with Robert McGarvey.
SPEAKER_02:Are you ready to grapple with the new NCUA requirement that every credit union have an up-to-date succession plan that covers both senior executives and board members? The good news, you're not required to have a written plan until January 1, 2026. The bad news, if you don't have a plan by then, or if your plan falls far short of NCUA's expectations, the credit union can be written up by an examiner. On the show is Jeff Paley, partner in the Monadio Group's Assurance Division, who offers a primer on what every credit union needs to know about the NCUA requirement. He also talks about what will happen if you simply tell the examiner, hey man, I forgot to get a plan together. Incidentally, although the NCUA explicitly flagged mergers triggered by a lack of a succession plan as a prompt for this new requirement, Paley says that a common succession plan among many credit unions is in fact merger. Go figure. Listen up. The NCUA succession rule, which takes effect, I believe January 1st, 2026. So a little bit over a year from now. And, uh, As you're probably following, it's very possible there'll be significant staff reductions at NCUA. Unless you have a burning desire to discuss that, I'd rather just let that lie since it's all up in the air, really. And I see no reason to think they're not going to go forward with the succession planning.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, the staffing level at the NCUA and other federal entities is very much in question. Obviously, there's been reductions in some places, but... I am not in the business of trying to predict how that's all going to play out. So from what I know, this succession rule is on the books. It's a rule, and it's effective 1-1-26. Unless something officially changes that, then I think we're talking about it as though it's a rule that people have to think about.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's the only rational way to proceed right now. We're in an irrational world, so let's be rational about little things. Now, I was looking through the template for small credit units. I'm picturing a small credit union, say 100 million in asset. And I'm picturing the board chairman pulling his or her hair out. I have to make a succession plan for 20 positions. This is crazy. I can't even count to 20.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and a lot of times the credit union doesn't even, these smaller credit unions don't even have 20 people. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:I
SPEAKER_01:talked
SPEAKER_02:to many that have, four paid staff people.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you have an individual person who's wearing a lot of hats. So most of those roles exist in some form within even a small credit union, most of them. But you have the same person who's doing six or seven of those or more even sometimes. So, I mean, our conversations that we're having so far with those smaller credit unions like that are saying, identify that person and you don't have to do a full update of that person's job description, but you can at least describe in writing the different roles that they play in the context of those 20 plus positions that are named there. You obviously don't need a succession plan for 20 different people if you only have four, but you may have a different in the plan if that person's wearing six or eight hats, maybe there's a plan for four or five of those hats that's one plan and a plan for three of the other roles that's different. That's possible. So entertaining the possibility of your plan being perhaps not as clear cut or as traditional as what the NCUA is laying out in that template, I think has to be entertained.
SPEAKER_02:Now, in your conversations with credit unions, what's the level of anxiety? Is there a difference between small credit unions and big credit unions? I imagine maybe federal has succession plans up the wazoo already in file cabinets. I'm just guessing here. I haven't talked with Navy, but they're military trained. There's a succession plan there someplace.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I would guess you're right. I don't have a relationship with the leadership at Navy personally, myself either. However, we have definitely noticed that larger credit unions have a different kind of reaction to this. There's really three reactions that come out when we ask credit unions how they're doing. One is typically from larger credit unions, but also from other credit unions where we ask them, like, what's your plan for this? And they say, oh, We are totally under control. We have our plan in place. Everything's great. We're done. Before the rule even came out, we had it totally covered. It's interesting, though, even with larger credit unions, if I ask a follow-up question, can I see the plan? Sometimes there's a little bit of silence there for a minute, and they have to think about that for a minute. And often it comes down to the idea that they don't really have a plan written down anywhere. They just have a plan that they've kind of come to understand in a less formal way. And in those cases, we're still talking to them about doing a little work to just articulate this in writing. Because if an NCUA examiner asks you for something and you say, oh, yeah, we have that. And they say, oh, can I see it? And you say, oh, well, we don't have anything in writing. That's usually not. going to go very well for you. You're going to get written up on that. So yes, I think to your question, larger credit unions generally are in better shape on this, but there still is work to do from what we're seeing to articulate it in writing in a way that will be responsive to this new rule.
SPEAKER_02:Why is this rule, why was it promulgated? Why does it exist?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the NCUA gave two reasons in the sort of introductory materials to the rule. The first one was that there's just more baby boomers retiring. Now, I don't think that's new exactly, but they cited that as a reason for this rule. The other reason, which is the more interesting one to me, is that they see that a lack of a succession plan is a factor in credit union mergers often enough that they wanna address this succession planning exposure, the risk here in the hopes that they can perhaps reduce the number of credit union mergers where this is one of the causes. So that's an interesting introductory comment from the NCUA to say, we think that a lack of succession planning is part of the reason there's so many credit union mergers. And so we want credit unions to plan for this so we can avoid mergers.
SPEAKER_02:I have no doubt that succession issues motivate a lot of mergers of credit unions.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, they absolutely do. And that That gets into, like I said, there's three responses that we're getting from credit unions when we talk about this. The first one I talked about is that we have it totally under control. One of the other ones is that, yeah, we have a succession plan. And this is mostly from smaller credit unions. And they'll say, yeah, we have a succession plan. It's that we're going to merge. That's our plan. Now, when the NCUA says we're establishing this rule to avoid mergers... I don't think going to the examiner and saying, yeah, we have a plan, we're going to merge, is really in the spirit of what they're looking for. I don't speak for the NCUA, of course, but I think if that's the plan, and we know there are credit unions where that is the plan, that may need some additional thinking, because I don't think the NCUA is looking for that as part of your plan with this rule.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I agree. I'm thinking as you talk, I remember a guy who was pretty well CEO of a small credit union, maybe 150 million in assets. And when he retired, at the normal retirement age, nothing sudden, that credit union merged out of existence because they couldn't find anyone who would take the damn job at the salary they were paying this guy who'd been in that job for like 30 years. And he was getting paid bupkis. And on Saturdays, if the teller was sick, he went to the teller line. He emptied the trash cans if the guy or the janitor was sick. He did everything. And they're talking with people and you pay me$75,000 and I got to do the trash
SPEAKER_01:cans. No, no, no. Well, yeah. And we actually have a lot of these folks who say their plan is to merge. They're not just doing that because they're lazy and they don't want to establish a succession plan. They have a thought out process where they say, look, we do not believe we can hire for this position because it's not a very glamorous position. And the people who would be qualified to run this small credit union typically are also qualified to be some sort of like a VP level person at a larger institution. And at that larger institution, there's going to be a better pay scale. There's going to be better resources. There's going to be opportunities for advancement. As a small credit union, they just can't compete with all that. So the chances of successfully recruiting a successor is really low. Sometimes you might have an internal candidate who would be willing to step up to that job. But to do a national search and hire for that position when there's, frankly, easier or maybe more palatable positions at larger institutions is really a challenge. And some credit unions have just decided it's not something they can do. And so they're just going to merge.
SPEAKER_02:I also know at least two guys who were CEOs of small credit unions who quit to take VP jobs at much larger credit unions. Oh, so there you go. I think they were paid more money, too. But they were also looking for further advancement in the large credit union universe. Exactly. Becoming CEO of big credit unions. And somehow it dawned on them that being CEO of a little credit union didn't position you to be CEO of a really big credit union.
SPEAKER_01:Right. So it takes a special person to want the job of, let's say, a$40 or$50 million credit union where you only have a staff of four or five people or 10 people or a small number of people and you're wearing a lot of hats. That's not the most appealing job in the marketplace right now. And so it's really hard to recruit for.
SPEAKER_02:So I'm a client of yours. I want to talk about this. And one of my first questions would be, imagine I'm a small credit union. How long is it going to take me to come up with this plan? I'm a kid writing a term paper. How long should I put into writing this term paper?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think that to do it right, I think you have to have a discussion at the board level with the CEO or the chief executive and maybe some other folks in the leadership team to just... talk about people's intentions because some of the, some of the sticky points here are that they, they kind of want you to have a date, a timeline for each of these positions. They don't mandate that you have a specific date of when the position is going to turn over, but they do have a lot of words in there that talk about how the plan is going to be a lot more meaningful if you do have a timeline. So a lot of times it's, nearly impossible because of the egos of the people in the room and these smaller credit unions and the relationships to nail someone down to a date that says, you know, I'm going to retire on this date kind of thing. And that means that the rest of the plan is a little bit softer because if you don't have a date, there's a lot of ifs in the other parts of the plan in terms of when you would start looking for someone or what kind of development work are you going to do with that number two person who might be the successor? So the biggest thing is just scoping out. I think if you're writing that term paper, the first thing you have to do is just sort of sit down with the other folks who are in decision-making positions on the board and just think about what might this look like before you start trying to articulate it on a piece of paper. And if you can come to an agreement on what this might look like, the writing it out, I don't think is necessarily going to take that long. The hard part is, getting around some of the personality and ego issues that can come up in these scenarios about the timeline and the plan.
SPEAKER_02:Now, who's responsible for preparing this document?
SPEAKER_01:Ultimately, management should be responsible, but the rule also has provisions that say the board has to be involved and they have to understand what the plan is. So I think we're gonna see at some credit unions where the board is taking the lead on this. In fact, we already are seeing where the board is taking the lead on the conversation. There are other credit unions where management's gonna put most of this together and the board might only deal with the CEO. I think this is more prevalent at larger credit unions. The board has to be involved with the CEO transition or succession plan, but for other positions, VP level types, The board has to understand what's going on, but they don't necessarily have to do it. It's going to be mostly the management folks who are putting it together is my anticipation.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I read that document. My memory's right. NCUA said a new board member has to be conversing with the succession plan within six months of appointment.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, and that's the expectation that the board's going to understand. Now, that new board member may not have anything to do with actually putting the plan together, but they do have to understand that what it is. And I think theoretically, at least, they have to be able to evaluate whether it's adequate or whether it's weak. And if it's weak, they have a responsibility to say something. So it does put responsibility on the board to understand what the plan is. And if it seems like it's going to be a viable, workable plan that's adequate for the credit union's needs.
SPEAKER_02:Now, in a Big credit union, a lot of succession planning involves interlocking pieces. So let's switch into the Fortune 500 world. In many cases, who's the successor to the CEO? It's the CFO. I mean, that's what you'd say in the succession plan most of the time. Who's the successor to the CFO? It's his number one, is the successor to that guy. And Wall Street's heard the CFO before. They're comfortable when he's named as the CEO most of the time. And if they're not going to be comfortable, they've already communicated they're not going to be comfortable. So he's never named CEO. But things aren't that clear-cut in the credit union world. In many institutions, the CFO doesn't have a person who's necessarily capable of succeeding him or her. They're just a different level of talent. That's all. It's not putting anybody down.
SPEAKER_01:Part of the reason for this rule, based on what the NCUA put in the introductory commentary, is thinking about these kind of things. If that number two person who needs to be part of the plan isn't really there yet or their skills aren't there, part of the plan should be to develop that person's skills if you believe that person is the person. If you don't think that person can get there because they're just not of that talent, they're not cut out for being the CFO, Then you have to think about, well, what's my plan to find somebody from the outside? That is all part of what this rule is about. So I think, especially at larger credit unions where they have enough resources to think about the different roles, they're going to have to think about, do we have internal candidates? If we do have internal candidates, but we have some reservations, is it something we can do to develop those people to... alleviate those reservations by developing their skill set or getting them involved in other things? Or do we have to look outside? If you're doing it right, if you're doing it in a way where you want it to be meaningful for the credit union, these kind of discussions are going to come up and really you should try to deal with them as effectively as you can.
SPEAKER_02:What happens if the NCOA examiner comes in And eventually ask, so let me see the succession plan. I say, I don't have one. Didn't get around to that. What happens?
SPEAKER_01:The first thing that will happen, it'll be written up in your exam like any other. I think it would come out more or less like any other thing where if you're supposed to have a policy about something and you can't produce a policy about that thing, you're going to get written up for not having a policy. So I think that's probably the first thing that happens. This gets into a question. And this is actually, I said earlier, there's three main responses to this. We talked about two of them, the idea that you might just have your plan B to merge and the idea that you have it totally under control. The third one that comes up is we're not going to worry about this because we just think the NCUA is not going to enforce it. Now, I don't personally believe that's the best way to go with this, like we talked at the beginning. But I think if you're in that situation, you're going to get written up in your exam. Now, what level of severity the examiners write you up on this? is yet to be seen. I certainly can't speak for the NCUA in terms of what they're going to do with this. There is precedent for saying in the first year that a rule is effective. They're a little bit, I'll say, softer on advising rather than just beating you up about things. But I think it's going to be written up in your exam.
SPEAKER_02:Well, even if it's written up, then what? What penalty is imposed on me?
SPEAKER_01:The rule doesn't have financial penalties. What it could do is in your CAMELS rating, it could reduce... the management rating from what it would have otherwise been. So they do have the ability to downgrade you on your CAMELS. Now, what that means specifically, because CAMELS ratings are pretty securely held close to the vest, I don't know that that has practical cost other than you're going to have to answer to it again at your next exam when they come back and see how you follow up
SPEAKER_02:on that. But it's not like I'm going to have to pay more money for my overnight loans. my interest rate is not going to go up. There's no tangible club being swung at me.
SPEAKER_01:That is correct. The rule does not have financial penalties in there. Now, obviously, if your CAMEL rating gets lowered, the NCUA can respond to that in different ways, following up more often with you instead of going on an 18-month cycle. There's other things they can do that would inflict a little bit of pain, sort of around the edges, but a direct financial cost is not laid out in the rule.
SPEAKER_02:My guess from what you're saying is quite a few credit unions will be, let's say, less than 100% on board with putting together a plan this year. I
SPEAKER_01:think we're going to see slow adoption for a couple of reasons. One is that, like you said, the hammer is not there. So a lot of credit unions, especially on the smaller side, if they're already sort of stretched thin in terms of resources, this is not going to be priority number one this year. And also, I think if there's no fear of enforcement or the fear of enforcement is relatively muted, yes, I agree. A lot of credit unions would rather not deal with this. And the smaller credit unions where they're going to struggle with this have more of an impact in terms of the personalities and egos of the individuals Often there are people who've been in those positions for long periods of time. They're used to sort of a level of respect, I guess, and that will be challenged by this. If you're telling that person, yes, we totally respect you, but we do need you to tell us when you're going to retire. And that's not the kind of question they want to answer. This can become a challenging thing in terms of the interpersonal relationships and those smaller credit unions. Putting this off is going to be awful tempting because the pain is of dealing with those interpersonal relationships often might be perceived as greater than the pain of telling the examiners that you didn't do anything.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, as you say that, you remind me. 15 or 20 years ago, the NCUA imposed a requirement on board members that they have to pass a financial literacy test. And small credit unions, that caused a firestorm, man. There were people who quit. There was so much anger about that. Personally, I thought, well, it's passing like a ninth grade class in finance. It's not really that hard, but apparently it was viewed as an imposition and an insult by many board members in small credit unions.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, and that kind of thing is still a thing. So how that plays out with this rule, I'm not exactly sure. It's still early days here. But I think those kind of things are going to pop up with this rule. especially with smaller credit unions.
SPEAKER_02:Now, go back to the Fortune 500 land. Job one of the board, the single most important job of that board is the CEO. Hiring the CEO, monitoring the CEO's performance, firing the CEO if necessary, and succession. I mean, that's really job one and job two and job three for board of directors. I agree. Is that true in credit union land?
SPEAKER_01:Not in the same kind of way. You don't have the public scrutiny because things like the CEO's compensation is not publicly disclosed, typically, like it is in a public company. There are some exceptions to that, like in a merger situation. Sometimes you have to disclose compensation information about senior management. But typically, because there's not as much public scrutiny, the board member's often think of themselves as representatives of the members, which they are, but the prioritization is understanding the member experience usually more than adjudicating or administrating CEO compensation questions or CEO evaluation questions. They do that. The board does those things, but it's often, and I'm speaking in generalities here, it's often more about what has that CEO's effect been on the member experience, as well as the financial performance and the strength of the credit union?
SPEAKER_02:Now, the credit union board get involved in other senior positions at the credit union, which would be a little unusual in a Fortune 100 company. I mean, the CEO would say, what the hell are you doing? I decide who's the CIO. You don't. Go away.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we've actually had conversations just in the last couple of months since this rule came out about that very question in terms of board members asking, do they have to understand the compensation packages and performance evaluations of all the people on this list or just the CEO, which is the more traditional way that a board would look at things? I think some boards are thinking about this differently. They may be expanding the meaning of the rule beyond what's actually written there. Because it doesn't talk about the board understanding the performance appraisal and compensation of all those people. It just talks about the board understanding the plan for succession of those roles if there is turnover in those roles or when there is turnover in those roles. So you don't necessarily have to understand the compensation, but where this gets sort of fuzzy is that a lot of times A succession plan will include some sort of deferred compensation arrangement, whether that's a relatively simple one or whether it's something more complicated like a split dollar plan or something like that. And the board typically is going to approve those kind of plans for all the senior management because it involves an allocation of capital and there's some risk associated with some of these things depending on what they're invested in. So now you have the board looking at part of the person's compensation or at least the deferred part of their compensation because it does relate to the succession plan when the board doesn't really know the base compensation of that person on a year-to-year basis. So some of those questions are being asked and I hesitate to say how this is going to play out because I think at some credit unions, the board is going to get more involved in that information and that process. In other credit unions, I think they're going to maintain more of a traditional, really just focused on the CEO and letting the CEO handle all the other positions.
SPEAKER_02:So, I mean, yeah, this opens a can of worms. It's not just a succession plan. Also, it's power dynamics inside a credit union.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, and that's why I talk about the personalities and the egos. I mean, I think we've all seen credit unions where there's a personality, whether that's the board chair or the CEO or somebody else in the mix who has an outsized presence in the discussion and in the decision-making and often sort of drives the conversation, that's going to be hard to cut through if that is the person who we need to have a succession plan for. And how do you fully replace that role? Or do you want to, I guess?
SPEAKER_02:Well, there are also some... I don't know if you've dealt with any of them. I'm sure you're aware of their existence. Very small, typically faith-based credit unions where it's one person who's doing everything. And who knows what that person's many titles are. It might just be one title, but they're doing literally everything.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we've seen, I have a credit union that's doing a merger right now. And the credit union that's being merged in is a small, it's literally$8 million credit union. very small they have one and a half employees and the one full-time person is doing literally everything that they do you know that person is involved in everything so that presents a challenge when that person has a personality that isn't necessarily inclined to play along or to communicate their intentions related to retirement and other things And in this case, that credit union is merging out of existence because that person is retiring and they never set a plan before that retirement event happened. And so then now they're merging out of existence. So that's pretty much exactly what the NCOA is trying to avoid with this rule.
SPEAKER_02:Well, the converse of that is that quite a few mergers, and I've done a lot of research about mergers, quite a few fall apart before they're consummated because board members resist them.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. The ego element to me, and I'm an accountant and an auditor, but when I think about risk and I talk to credit unions who are trying to do collaborative arrangements with other institutions or they're trying to get into a merger discussion with somebody, the ego element is the biggest risk, in my opinion. I think for mergers specifically, but I think also for things like succession planning in terms of When you get board members who have a very strong idea about what should be happening, and then the reality is playing out a little differently, it can cause some tension and there can be some static that can sort of reduce the progress that you're making on whatever it is you're trying to do.
SPEAKER_02:I know a couple of cases, and you probably know some too, where a person, everybody thought this person was going to retire at 65. And he pretty much agreed that that was true 10 years earlier. 65 comes in, ah, you know, I'm feeling good health. It's 70. 70 is the new 65. Now, everybody else in the institution has been assuming that this was it. He was going to leave that year.
SPEAKER_01:There's situations where the successor has already been identified and everyone knows that that person is going to ascend to the CEO role. But now they're being told they have to wait five more years. That is literally just blowing up the whole plan because is that person going to sit there for five more years? Sometimes they're not going to be willing to do that. So they're going to jump ship and go somewhere else. That is definitely a thing. And it's definitely a challenge because in some cases it would be better in that situation. If the board just said, I'm sorry, but you're done. Like we all had this plan laid out. We honor your, role here and we respect you but we have to like stick with the plan that we have because that's what we've all agreed to and that is where the ego thing comes in and causes problems because if nobody on the board has the gumption to have that conversation with that person things can kind of fall apart and now you have to start all over because the plan that you had set up is no longer valid
SPEAKER_02:well yeah I'm thinking of another guy who retired at 65. He didn't really want to retire at 65, but he did. But then he actually, for at least five years thereafter, he did fill in temporary CEO jobs at small credit unions. Six months here, nine months there. And everybody accepted it because he didn't want the job permanent. He was just holding down the fort while the board's job was to get a new CEO. So there aren't people willing to do that temporary sort of gig. And that should be figured into at least some succession plans as an option. I don't know if NCUA would be pleased with that.
SPEAKER_01:You made a good point. And I've actually talked to some folks about this idea of an interim person who would be that sort of seat filler while you're doing your search for the long-term solution. I think that's a valid path. And I don't know, obviously, what the NCUA would think of this. But I think if you articulated a plan where you say, instead of merging out of existence, we're going to find a recently retired credit union executive who can be our interim person, whether it's six months or nine months, whatever. And during that time, while that person is sort of keeping the trains running here at the credit union, we're going to look for our next real leader. And that's our plan. I think that is a plan. Is it the best plan for every credit union? Probably not. But is it a plan that is legit and has a chance of success? Yes, I think it is. So that interim idea is valid, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_02:Is that a good plan for a Navy federal? No, I don't think so. But is that a good plan for a$200 million credit union? Very well could be.
SPEAKER_01:I totally agree. As long as you agree up front what the terms and duration of this arrangement is with that person and that they're not like a temp to perm kind of thing, then yes, that can be. And speaking of that, I think if you want to change gears, you could be that person for some credit union someplace. Don't you think?
SPEAKER_02:No. No? My patience isn't that good. Now, our credit unions, this will be my last question, our credit unions being like high school kids saying, oh, that term paper is not due until December. So I think I'll get around to doing some research. Don't you worry about that. But right now it's a little early. Is that what you're encountering?
SPEAKER_01:There's definitely some of that. I mean, the first excuse, because this rule came out in December. So a lot of credit unions were like, okay, I'll deal with that after I do my year-end close and all my year-end stuff. And now that year-end closes are under control, the call reports are in for 1231, all that stuff. Some of them are circling back and a lot of them now are saying, well, yeah, I know I got to do this, but I kind of want to wait and see what other credit unions do first. But no one's going
SPEAKER_02:to show you their succession plan, I don't think, unless you have a really great buddy at another institution.
SPEAKER_01:Right, exactly. It expressly says you do not have to share this with anyone. That idea of sharing it, though, it has come up multiple times in the context of like a merger discussion. If you're in those really early stages of discussion, might the other credit union ask you for your succession plan since they know you're supposed to have one? they could ask for it. If you have this non-disclosure agreement of a merger due diligence process, which you typically would have in that scenario, would you share this with somebody? And I think the answer is it would be hard not to because everyone knows you're supposed to have one. So you can't just tell them I don't have one because you have to have one. Again, I don't think those are supposed to be, well, I know they're not supposed to be public information, but once everyone knows you have one, I feel like People are going to potentially ask for it. You can always say no, but I think it's going to be a thing that gets asked for sometimes.
SPEAKER_02:It's a good point you're making. That's a new way to make a merger not happen.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I can even see it. I can even see it when you're doing your search and you're looking at candidates. I could envision a time when a candidate would ask, please show me your succession plan because they want to understand, is there a plan for the rest of the team? or what the board and the senior management team is thinking about succession before you even take the job. I could see candidates asking for this as part of their consideration of taking the job. Whether that plays out again, I don't know. But it's the kind of thing that to me, if I was applying for a CEO job at a credit union, I would be interested in how the board's thinking. Where's their mind at around leadership and succession planning?
SPEAKER_02:Before we go, think hard about how you can help support this podcast so we can do more interviews with more thoughtful leaders in the credit union world. What we're trying to figure out here in these podcasts is what's next for credit unions. What can they do to really, really, really make a difference in the financial scene? Can't all be mega banks, can it? It's my hope it won't all be mega banks. It'll always be a place for credit unions. That's what we're discussing here. So figure out how you can help. Get in touch with me. This is rjmcgarvey at gmail.com. Robert McGarvey again. That's rjmcgarvey at gmail.com. Get in touch. We'll figure out a way that you can help. We need your support. We want your support. We thank you for your support. The CU 2.0 Podcast.