Shaping Consumer Experiences for Financial Success

Somebody told me we were gonna do this in the spirit

of Peaky Blinders. Oh,

Is that what we're do in gov?

Alright. Alright. I actually am from England,

so I might be able to land the accent. I'm not sure. Well,

I didn't bring any of my, you know, brass

and knuckles, so We'll, like to discontinue as such,

you know, Jason, I was thinking about your,

the title you carry at BECU, EVP,

Chief Member and Digital Experience Officer.

This role is massive in terms of what it touches,

The responsibility it has,

and just like those, that combination of

what it carries in terms of responsibility,

interaction, et cetera.

And so you really sort

of engage in the whole member journey

in many different ways.

Tell me what experience actually means

to you from a philosophy standpoint,

because that's so much of how you start

in the way you think about this role

and a lot of how things have been structured

and really how this

has an impact on the membership as a whole

and how you choose to interact with them as BECU.

Well that's a big question. It is. Yeah.

I'm gonna see if I can land the plane.

So first off, thanks for the opportunity

to talk a little bit about BECU.

Experience of BECU is digital first human noise,

and it's grounded in our purpose, which is ultimately as one

of the nation's largest credit unions about improving the

financial wellness of our members

and the communities in which we're in.

So we serve 1.5 million members.

We're a $30 billion asset company.

So I'd like to say we're small enough to get your arms

around, but big enough to matter in the scheme

of credit unions and what credit unions can do.

if we go one step further, what we're trying to do is

to move at scale, our members from financial access

to financial health to financial

prosperity to financial freedom.

And that's really, really important to us

because I think a lot

of people would say improving financial wellbeing of members

and communities is important.

I think the outcome of that,

and what we're really, really focused on is

creating pathways so that our members can create

lasting generational wealth,

which is ultimately the unlock

that we see if we do that well.

And then as you asked about the experience

that we have and the philosophy of

what we're driving towards, a reminder

that we're also solving for five generations at scale

and at speed who often have very,

very different relationships with

and practical application with their money.

And we have to build an experience

that is both scalable

and also addresses the individual needs

of those five generations

and how they turn and how they show up.

So as we think about experience,

I think about a few cornerstones.

The first is, as we've heard here,

digital isn't a channel anymore, right?

It is a mindset.

As we think about delivering human centered experiences

and how we do that across 1.5 million members and growing.

And how we do that at scale.

And digital is also not just the front end experience.

I'm fortunate my team has responsibility

for the digital experiences in new palm of your hand,

but we also have to work very,

very deliberately thinking about digital

as the backend experience.

'cause if you fix the front end

and the back end doesn't work

you haven't solved the problem, you haven't

built a true experience.

I think the second point is we're guided

by four Cs to keep it really simple.

We're trying to deliver experiences that are consistent,

convenient, compliant, and contextual.

And so that enables it.

We on a daily basis give not only our

members, but our employees,

too much homework, right? There's paper floating around.

We haven't quite killed the facts even in 2025,

which is a little scary.

And so thinking about the homework

that we give our members and how we reduce that friction,

how we make it easier for them to do business

with us, and then ultimately can propel them on

that journey to financial wellbeing.

I think the other thing about the philosophy that I have

for the team is you have to walk the walk

of the people that you serve.

I'm not unbanked or underbanked.

I have not been, how can I possibly solve the need

or understand the needs and solve the needs of the unbanked

and the underbanked that come through our physical, virtual,

and digital doors every day?

If I don't walk the walk with them

and understand what that is

and listen at scale

and then embedded in that philosophy is I think the ability

to bring it always back to people.

In order for us to deliver the experience that

we're attempting, we have

to have the right people in the right seats.

And that's really, really important to us.

The 3,200 people that wake up every day,

and have the honor

and the responsibility to do the right thing by our members

as a member own business.

We need to invest in them so

that they understand and they're very, very connected

to the experience that we're trying to deliver.

Embedded deeply in that is this concept

of empathy with a pretty broad group,

you know, five generations

Yeah.

The different stages that individuals are in,

in these phases from a financial sort of journey themselves.

And I think one of the hallmarks of BECU

forever that I've known them has been this commitment

to financial success in all these different phases.

You know, from the financial centers to

the way that you think about digital in this experience

and kind of the unification of that across the board.

As you all think about technology

and the way that you're utilizing that,

recently you made an acquisition of Earn Up.

And as I understand it, that was very

oriented around how it is that you fuel this mission

of financial wellness for the members of BECU

and all these phases.

Tell me more about that.

So again, grounded in your question about experience,

as we think about the journeys we want to create, I mean,

we are on a mission to move BECU from a product led,

experience to a journey led experience.

So whether that be the journeys that we build, the digital,

the mobile experiences that we create,

the financial health journeys that we, that we

curate, technology.

And increasingly, AI is at the forefront of that,

but it is anchored very much so in the needs

and the wants of the members that we serve.

And so, as you mentioned, right,

and we've heard AI has the ability to personalize at scale,

rapid scale experiment,

and enable us to develop new solutions in order

to test those with our, with our members.

The acquisition of Earn Up, is what we like to…

when you read about AI,

many companies are taking bold strokes.

And so Earn Up was our first bold stroke.

Earn Up is a financial wellness FinTech company

that has been spending time creating easy to use solutions

to help fuel

financial wellbeing and financial wellness.

And so we acquired their gen AI capabilities

and a number of their team members moved over to BECU.

And so if you can imagine a financial advisor,

that understands your, in these unique situation

and it's in your fingertips, when we announced that's

what we're building, our AI advisor will be personalized.

And it is being built in order

to understand your unique situation

and then be able to guide you through that continuum

that I mentioned from financial access all the way

to financial freedom with personalized steps along the way,

and delivering not only sound advice,

but also delivering action.

'cause at the end of the day, if I give you advice,

but you don't take action, we're not gonna be able

to realize the

improvement in the financial wellbeing of our members

and our communities that we seek to serve.

We'll do that in a fair and an ethical way, of course.

That's incredibly, incredibly important to us.

And it's also important if you think about the members

that we serve and the communities that we're in,

because we fundamentally believe we have an opportunity

to democratize financial wellbeing at scale.

If you think about whether you're starting out,

Rodney talked about the fact that there are 40% of Americans

don't have $400 to be able to do,

you know, fix something that broke yesterday.

Or whether you are ready

to start taking that first step.

You've earned enough, you've got enough assets

to be able to take that step to building

that first step on generational wealth.

We firmly believe with the Earn Up capability,

we have the opportunity to serve those five generations

wherever they are, to be able to do that.

And in a very, very meaningful way.

That's the beginning of the journey.

The Earn Up acquisition also enables us to, again,

personalize at scale.

We'll be able to infuse AI into our digital

and mobile experiences beyond the advisor.

And we will continue to experiment and learn

and thoughtfully add that throughout the journey

that we're on to transform our digital experience.

So very much in the bold strokes perspective,

it's maybe not so much getting your feet wet,

but really diving into how you start

to use this in the pursuit of the breadth

of experiences that members are having in this kind

of multi-generational thesis.

I've got this little 8-year-old daughter,

we've talked about her, Grace.

Yeah. I watch her oftentimes

today in her life.

And it occurs to me that she will never know a time

that she's not able to sort of ask the genie for help.

You know, like she will progressively get more

and more guided by this as the years go on, as

generative a AI gets embedded in

the devices around the house.

And I sort of realize she's being raised in this,

I speak English because I never had any other concept of it,

she's gonna be kind of raised on this notion of AI.

As you think about that work that you're doing now

and this future generation that's coming rapidly,

10 years from now, she's gonna be having

financial expectations.

You know, how do you,

think about this in the vision making within BECU

of being relevant within the ecosystem of what

my little Grace is going to expect in her financial

existence with that kind of a shaped mind?

Well, I think if I knew the

answer to that, I would be,

We could do,

that I feel like I wanna invite Sol back

to actually answer that question.

I think she might be in a better position.

So a few thoughts.

I mentioned at the top

of the conversation our purpose.

And so I think the first thing is don't lose sight

of your purpose or your North Star.

I am a lucky man to do what I do.

I really am. The work that I do is joy, it's joy work.

And at this stage in the career,

I'm incredibly thankful for that.

There's a team of 3,200 people at BECU that are

thankful for the opportunity,

and dare I say, very, very keen

and responsible to doing the right thing

because we're a

member owned company, right?

We're a not-for-profit cooperative.

And so at the end of the day it's our members' money.

So we have to be incredibly thoughtful

and incredibly responsible with what we do.

So I think that's mission one.

Do not lose sight of your purpose or your North Star.

Number two for me right now is, I like

to say Vision 2030.

So I'm in the midst of 2026 planning right now,

and it would be very easy for me to be mired in 26

and starting to think 27, the puck is already at 2030.

So how do I inspire my team?

How do we think very, very thoughtfully about the things

that we've got to think about now that we, we will need

to deliver in 2030?

How do we do that internally?

How do we work with partners like Amex to figure out what

that looks like and how do we start to take those steps?

And you mentioned kind of jumping in,

you know, full force.

I think we have to

meet this acceleration of evolution as,

Sol had said, but at the same

time, we have

to be both courageous and thoughtful.

So I would say we are putting our toe in the water not

jumping in very, very deliberately.

And then I think the third for me, in answer

to your question about vision,

it comes back to people, right?

So deliberately engaging with employees and members

and communities, listening to them

and understanding what's on

their minds to be able to do that.

And in the context of AI,

just being very thoughtful about workforce

enablement and productivity.

So we're spending a tremendous amount of time

with our teams, really, really engaging them in the basics

of AI to understand how it's gonna impact their lives, and

therefore how that will impact the experience.

As an example you know, in our contact center,

right, there's gonna be a tremendous evolution with AI

and other technologies transforming your traditional contact

center to a voice enabled experience.

And so, as part of the earn up acquisition,

we've actually have created an AI agent,

and that takes, for our contact center agents,

it takes 3,300 info point articles.

I'm sure you all have them. How do I figure that out?

It's been written and then it's been overwritten,

and then it's been overwritten again.

And so we've deployed for 33 for our agents

a curated AI agent

that essentially using natural language curates,

how do I help a member do that in seconds

and minutes as opposed to that taking 10, 15, 20 minutes

to be able to enable our contact center agents to engage

with AI in a way that's comfortable,

and then also ultimately show them the power of that

as we continue to extend that

and other technology solutions we have

to build the experience that we're aiming for.

These are some of the baby step paths

that I hear you talking about.

You know, Clay Christensen, well-known

for Innovator's Dilemma talks about how sort

of the incumbent loses on the basis of them not being able

to get out of their own way with culture steeped,

infrastructure steeped, kind of

sacred things that can't be disrupted internally.

When you think about these baby steps

and sort of some of the large changes that entities

of your size

or larger need to make, what kind of courage,

what kind of thought process, what kind of mindset

do organizations like yours

and larger need to be able to have in order to

participate in this?

In a way such that the relevancy is there in 2030 and beyond?

Yeah. And not sort of bypassed?

Well BECU is 90 years young this year.

That's what I like to say. 90 years young.

December 7th of 1935.

Although we will not be celebrating on Pearl

Harbor Day, I can promise you that.

So I think it's really, really hard for

organizations to not have any sacred cows.

But I think my responsibility as part

of the executive management team is to push

and say, Hey, we need to re-look at that differently.

Three things come to mind. The first is structure, right?

So another bold stroke led by our CEO, Bev Anderson,

that actually brought this team together, right?

So I have responsibility with my team

for essentially getting people to our experience

and getting people through our experience.

So that is marketing a brand, digital, physical, and,

and voice or contact center growing into voice.

And that's a new team.

We've been at this for 18 months.

They weren't always together,

they were in three different parts of the organization.

And very often, as you can appreciate in three different

parts of the organization, siloed thinking would happen.

And actually what one team would do would

create friction for another team.

And so we brought that team together,

and that's actually paying dividends very, very quickly.

I think the second for both

internal partners that work with us

and then also external partners such as MX,

is common aligned goals, simply put,

we have a SOAP strategy on a page.

It's one page. We're very, very clear about

what we're aiming for, how we use data,

what we're focused on,

and essentially what's essential, right?

That power of essentialism that in a sea

of infinite opportunities.

And believe me, BECU is a target rich environment where we,

we can, we have, may sound like a lot,

but there are 20 things on that page.

And every single person on my team should be able to look up

and say, I see myself in one of those 20 things.

And then we take that to our partners in risk.

We can bring that to our partners at MX

and say, here are the 20 things that we're attempting to do.

They won't all get done in a year, right?

They may be multi-year.

But the power of SOAP

and essential essentialism is really guiding us from a

vision and a culture perspective

to actually teach our organization

and our teams to actually say, not right now,

which is also really, really hard.

Not right now.

And then I third, I think the third very quickly

is intentional impact.

And as an example of that would be the work

that we're doing in Spokane, in eastern Washington.

You know, for the longest time

we actually weren't focused on Spokane.

We entered the Spokane market in 2016.

We built a couple of neighborhood financial centers,

which is what we call branches.

And then we stopped building in 2018.

And if you think about our purpose,

which is about improving the financial wellbeing

of members in the communities we serve, we stopped.

So we had this community that we started,

and we actually didn't finish the job.

So fortunately a number of us got together when a number

of us joined in 2023.

We took a look at the data.

We understood the marketing,

we understood the environment,

the members, what they actually needed.

There was a unique, there are similar needs

to western Washington and also unique needs within Spokane.

And what we committed to is we said we're going to refocus

and rebuild our efforts in Spokane.

So we, this year, we just opened

our first NFC in seven years in South Hills Spokane.

We're gonna open a few more.

We built our first for Spokane advertising campaign.

We're here to help based on data, based on insights,

you know. So, for example,

Spokane under indexes on social media engagement,

but overindexes on gaming, we had never asked that question.

We never looked at the data.

And so what we had done is we took a western Washington

approach, put it into Spokane,

and surprise, surprise, it didn't work.

It didn't resonate. So we changed that.

We engaged in the community,

community engagement for credit unions.

I say we do that particularly well,

but we saw an opportunity to help fund

and open Spokane's first open air farmer's market.

It's quite fascinating.

Spokane is the bread basket of Washington and yet had

or deals with such high levels of food insecurity.

And until this year did not have an open air farmer's market

to curate and build local businesses and,

and feed people in a way

that can be incredibly purposeful.

So that gives you a sense of how beyond digital and

and mobile experiences, that vision is all encompassing.

And why the MX team that again, is marketing brand,

digital, physical, and voice.

Putting that together enables us to have very,

very unintentional impact that connects to the fact,

and we're incredibly proud of this, that in 2024,

BECU returned $490 million to our members in the form

of low or no fees.

We reprice loans, we don't ask for it, right?

We reprice loans

and we are continuing this march to helping

our members improve their financial wealth

and their finance, their financial health,

and indeed the financial wellbeing.

Bravo. That's beautiful.

This conversation has ultimately been about,

I think this confluence of empathy fused in

with the way we think about the use of technology,

whatever it is, particularly as we look to the now

and future of how AI fits within that.

But allowing that empathy to shape priorities in terms

of driving strategically so that relevancy is

what remains in the future.

You know, you also have this podcast: More Elephant.

Talk a little bit about that to close

and sort of how that fits in with this

philosophy of experience

and basically having that shape the lives

of the humans that we serve.

Thanks for giving a shout out to the podcast. Yeah.

The tagline of the podcast is,

listen, learn, live better.

We just opened up season two a couple of weeks ago.

First guest of season two was Reverend Naomi Tutu,

Desmond Tutu daughter, just talking about

ideas of change.

And now ultimately we have two

of these and one of these.

And if we use this more than we use this,

we might be actually on a path to creating

meaningful change in the world and in the work that we do.

If I bring that back into kinda like the corners

of BECU, what I love about our members is

they're not afraid.

They compliment us when we do it right.

They're not afraid to tell us

when we actually miss the mark.

And we added more friction into the,

process and the experience than we should.

And so we listen intently.

We do all of the traditional things.

We look at NPS, we look at all of the surveys,

and then there are a couple of things we do

that I'm incredibly proud that the team does.

We have a member advisory panel where any adult member

of BECU can join, give us feedback,

help us shape the products, the solutions,

the journeys that we're doing.

And we use that. We are,

true believers in human centered design.

And so we use that very, very thoughtfully

as we innovate and we build.

But it also extends to community.

Last Friday, I was at a board meeting with the

Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle.

And we were talking about affordable housing, job creation,

financial health, the connection between financial health

and physical health.

We just extended our agreement with the Seattle Storm,

where we bring in 600 kids on

an annual basis.

And our role there is

to have true community impact linking physical

and financial health together,

which you might not naturally think

that a credit union would do,

but that's about listening to the needs of the

community, particularly marginalized communities

and figuring out how we, BECU, can, again, put them on a path

from financial access, encourage them to get

to financial freedom, and again, put them on that path

to creating lasting, durable, generational wealth.

And then at the end of the day

you mentioned you have an 8-year-old, right?

So, I think each of us,

I'll personalize this for a moment.

I know each of the,

every single person on my team takes this

so personally. What I'm most proud of

because we listen at scale, is that it enables me to go back

to my 12-year-old and my 9-year-old.

And they turn around and they say,

well, what did you do today?

And I turn around and I say, we changed lives.

And I truly mean it because we do.

I love that. This is why BECU and Max as partners have

fundamentally been so key to one another,

empowering the world to be financially

strong, changing the lives of others.

Jason Rudman, thank you so much.

Thank you my friend. Really

Appreciate this conversation.