What happens when a global HR expert falls in love with the credit union movement? Nenuca Syquia, CEO of Boxd, joins Mark Ritter to challenge how credit unions think about leadership development, change management, and staying relevant in a shifting market. With the average credit union member now 53 years old, the urgency to attract younger generations is real. Nenuca brings bold ideas on board diversity, mission-driven culture, and why the best-kept secret in financial services needs to start telling a much better story.

What You Will Learn in This Episode:

✅ Why credit union leadership must evolve beyond institutional comfort zones, and how bringing in diverse board perspectives can sharpen both mission focus and competitive awareness against the broader financial services market.

✅ How the concept of "human bridges" inside your organization can prevent costly digital transformation failures by connecting tech language with real-world member workflows and day-to-day operations.

✅ How embedding long-tenured employee knowledge into clear operational principles supports member experience consistency, especially as credit unions grow through merger integration and generational workforce transitions.

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TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Observations on credit union leadership trends and Mark introduces Nenuca Syquia of Boxed

03:11 Nenuca shares her personal journey as a credit union member and her mission to expand awareness of credit unions

11:19 Member demographics, aging membership, and why attracting younger generations is critical for credit union growth

15:20 Human bridges and how they connect tech teams to real-world member experience and digital transformation efforts

20:21 Board diversity, insularity within the industry, and the need for diverse expertise at the leadership level

27:41 Mission-driven culture and change management principles help credit unions stay locally relevant

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

💎 Credit union leadership cannot afford insularity. Boards need members who combine deep mission loyalty with operational literacy, tech fluency, and awareness of the full competitive landscape beyond rival credit unions.

💎 Long-tenured staff carry irreplaceable institutional knowledge, but that knowledge must be deliberately extracted and embedded into organizational systems before retirements and growth make it permanently inaccessible.

💎 Successful digital transformation in credit unions depends far less on selecting the right technology and far more on changing human behavior, building trust across departments, and creating clear pathways that support employee engagement at every level.

ABOUT THE GUEST:

Boxd - Website

Nenuca Syquia - LinkedIn

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Mark Ritter - Website

Mark Ritter - LinkedIn

Life of a New Credit Union CEO - Kelly Botti

Checking In With Ancin Cooley of Synergy Credit Union Consulting and CU Communities

SEO KEYWORDS:

Credit Union Conversations, Mark Ritter, MBFS, Credit Unions, CUSO, Credit Union Leadership, Credit Union Strategy, Organizational Performance, Member Experience, Digital Transformation, Board Diversity, Human Resources, Institutional Knowledge, Merger Integration, Change Management, Mission Driven Culture, Better Organizations By Design

[00:00:35] Comp, everybody says competition is really intense. Competition is tough. The industry is changing. We're at a breaking point and I'm just like, blah, blah, blah. Okay. You said

[00:00:48] Mark Ritter: years. This year though, I actually have felt a little bit different. In that I'm seeing more big credit union [00:01:00] activity in terms of mergers, acquisitions, people buying new systems, CEOs and boards turning over for the first time in a long time.

[00:01:35] But I checked it out and it's legitimate. So, and, and then I, when I searched up, it was actually and checked it out. I thought, this is a pretty interesting person I want to have on this show. So joining me today is Nuka Zakia. How'd I do?

[00:01:59] Mark Ritter: Alright, [00:02:00] so she is the CEO and founder of Boxed, which is also Better Organizations by Design.

[00:02:12] Nenuca Syquia: mark? I'm so excited to be here. And by the way, living life out of a suitcase. I know that drill, and let me just say one of my secret talents actually is I am a really good suitcase packer. I can pack it in such a way that everything will fit and it will not go over the weight limit.

[00:02:32] Mark Ritter: I am an over packer. I always bring home half my clothes, not that I didn't touch, and I always check a bag and my, my wife ridicules me because my suitcase is way too big.

[00:02:48] Mark Ritter: Absolutely. So I'm fascinated by your background and I always like to make this show about people first.

[00:03:11] Nenuca Syquia: Okay, sure. My origin story, so I. All my life, mark, even when I was a kid, I've always been intrigued by people. So obviously as I started working, I got more intrigued about the people side of business.

[00:03:48] But in the last decade or of my career, I chose to really focus on the organizational performance space. And the reason is that I think. It's the most direct route to affecting actual business results while [00:04:00] still staying focused on the human. I think it is deliciously complex and I love what I do so much.

[00:04:24] And that translates over to the kind of work that we do at Boxed. And I think it's also relevant since I'm the founder for the company. My parents actually entrepreneurs, which by the way, when I called them and I told them I was leaving my job. I told them I was starting a business. They thought I was crazy.

[00:04:42] Mark Ritter: They were, they were in absolute panic.

[00:04:59] I was always [00:05:00] doing like a retail arbitrage. Wholesaling. I was always buying and selling something, franchising businesses, so like when everybody else in high school was going out to party, I was like, I have to go home early because I have to wake up early and go sell some stuff in the market. So I knew that I was always gonna run a business.

[00:05:39] Mark Ritter: Oh, I believe that. Now I love to dig into people's LinkedIn and I go down internet rabbit holes. So you are a, it looks like you're a na. You are a native of the Philippines.

[00:05:52] Mark Ritter: And you went to what I would consider what I have researched as the Harvard of the Philippines as an undergraduate.[00:06:00]

[00:06:01] Mark Ritter: Then you went to, you studied at Cornell.

[00:06:07] Mark Ritter: You, you were, were you absolutely stunned going from the Philippines to Ithaca, New York. That must have been the culture. Shock of culture shock.

[00:06:27] So one, let's just talk about the weather. So for those who don't know the Philippines, it is tropical. Tropical, tropical. Like you. Take a shower. The moment you step out of the shower, you're already sweating and Ithaca gets so cold. I'll be honest, mark, I had not researched the location. I, at that time, I was doing really well in my career.

[00:07:01] So I said, fine, I'm gonna look up what is the best school for Human resources. 'cause that's what I was focused on at that time. What is the best school for human resources and that's the one I'm gonna apply to. And Cornell kept coming up. So I said, fine, I'm gonna apply to this one school and if I get in, it's a sign.

[00:07:22] Mark Ritter: Yes, I live about two hours south of there, but way up in the mountains. So yes, that's the world that I live in terms of the freezing cold weather. So.

[00:07:36] Mark Ritter: a lot of adjustment.

[00:07:42] Nenuca Syquia: I made some really great friends out there and I learned a lot, truly about myself. I think there is something about. Moving into a culture that you don't primarily identify with. And by the way, I think I had underestimated how hard it was going to be because I had visited the US so many times.

[00:08:19] And I learned a lot about myself by realizing, you know, when you're not like everybody else, you do tend to become more introspective, to understand how you're seeing the world differently from other people. We're getting a deep here, mark.

[00:08:41] Tell me about your exposure to credit unions so far, and, and we will dig deep into a little bit, but, but your thoughts on the credit union industry and your experience so far and exposure to it.

[00:09:05] It was actually my husband when I moved here who turned me onto credit unions. And when we got married in the first accounts that we opened together, we're actually at a credit union and we continue to be the diverse today and boxed primary bank. Is a credit union and most of us who work at Box are members of credit unions too.

[00:09:41] I'm on a mission for that.

[00:10:05] It wasn't. I love that. And that, and that was that exposure. And I, and I, that's why I, I've really worked into this community banking and I love credit unions and developed this little niche here. So yeah, it's been quite a ride and quite a bit changed over the last 25 years. And I've really, I've been primarily focused on helping out businesses within the credit union movement, which is in a totally different subject.

[00:10:54] We have to get younger, we have to open kids accounts, we have to do this, we [00:11:00] have to diverse all of those demographics and we're today, people are still complaining about the same issue and it's probably worse. What are your observations so far in terms of the demographics compared to some other institutions?

[00:11:29] Mark Ritter: I am 53, and I have always considered myself exceedingly average. So that's good. So

[00:11:42] So when you think about it, your customers are literally aging out of the system. The good news is, and I think one of your previous guests on your episode, I think it was Kelly, Kelly bhi. Which that was back in 2 20 23. She had said one of the things [00:12:00] that gives her hope is that the younger generations seem to want to do more work with values aligned businesses.

[00:12:28] I'm gonna take off off a little tangent. Here's my A DHD in full display.

[00:12:33] Nenuca Syquia: When you think about the world of employment and the social contract between an employer and an employee, how that has shifted through the generation. So first you have the transactional era. This is. Primarily during the manufacturing stage when businesses were really growing through the manufacturing space and the contract there was, I will pay you, I, the employer will pay you employee a fair wage.

[00:13:14] Which is closer to where we are today, which is, I pay you, I'll take care of you, and I will give you work that you will find fulfilling or give you work with a purpose. And I would say now we're in that mutual accountability era. This really came to a peak, at least here in the US during COVID and everything that was happening with the border of George Floyd and other people.

[00:14:01] Also, because that is where the generation of today wants to both.

[00:14:28] And you really have to have that community values and systems. And that's where credit unions, I think, have an advantage.

[00:14:51] And then the value proposition of where a values led organization is almost like. A really giant cherry on top, but at the [00:15:00] base mark, you, we do have to make things easier for customers to be able to engage with their credit unions, whether that's through a digital experience or an analog experience.

[00:15:20] Nenuca Syquia: You were just talking about technology mark and how it is central to. The evolution, I would say, of credit unions. However, tech, the tech field people who work in tech, they tend to speak in a very specific kind of language.

[00:15:50] We're in the same place, but we're seeing the world through our own perspective, through our own lenses. So your human bridges, they are the ones who sit in between that, I don't [00:16:00] necessarily mean formally within the organization, but when I say they sit between it as they take an operational process, they translate that into what that means for system requirements, and they take.

[00:16:30] Or you will find that the operation side of the business will resist this 'cause they don't trust that it'll actually work or they'll find workarounds. 'cause it doesn't work for the reality by the way, from a consulting standpoint, one of the number one things we look for when we come into organizations that are looking to change is we try to find all the workarounds people are engaging in.

[00:17:09] Mark Ritter: When I first started at a credit union starting up their business lending program, and this was when helping small businesses, was a spec on the industry, and we would finance vehicles for people and people would put the vehicle in their business name so they could go to me and get a vehicle. And I would need all the business, the corporate information, or they would go to the consumer side who would gladly put the information in their business name and they would do this loan in about 10 seconds.

[00:18:10] And, and or somebody says, mortgage, that's not me. And it's just these silos of instead of worrying about an experience and just taking care of a member, you're more worried about your role and that's not me.

[00:18:33] It's like very personality based. These are the people who are like systems thinker, who have a lot of social capital with their peers, and therefore they can bring people together. But what you just described, pulling people all together in a room, that is actually a way that you can start creating more bridge builders in an organization.

[00:19:14] Mark Ritter: Part of the challenge that I see at credit unions is generally credit unions are very stable organizations.

[00:19:23] Mark Ritter: So you get people who have just been there a long time and that tech person comes in or the tech person is there real. Yeah. So, so that's a fascinating outlook. So.

[00:19:41] There is a lot of institutional knowledge, judgment that sits in person's brains. And when these people retire or. And leave the organization. They take that knowledge with them. The challenge that credit unions who have long tenured workforces have is they need to start embedding all of that knowledge into how they [00:20:00] actually operate as an organization.

[00:20:20] Mark Ritter: So I have done more speaking engagements in the credit union industry, at conferences, for boards, for staffing, bring looking, talking to cred, the executives team, talking to the boards, the lending team, all sorts of items.

[00:21:14] Nenuca Syquia: That's a good way to put it.

[00:21:26] Nenuca Syquia: thoughts

[00:21:27] Nenuca Syquia: Well, first, mark, let's talk about the insularity piece because I know it is a critique and it's one that I agree with I wanna recognize.

[00:21:59] Like they're [00:22:00] trying to protect so much at the expense of learning from other faces and drawing inspiration from them. And so now let's talk about the boards. Actually, mark, what did you think of the last comment that I made about them only wanting to learn from each other because I have other thoughts on that, but I wanna hear if you see the same thing.

[00:22:38] So somebody new coming in today. When you say, why do you do that? Well, somebody set it up 30 years ago, and that's what we do. And it's such a focus on each other. And sometimes there's some personalities in the room where when a vote is made, everybody looks at the same person. It says, what do you want to do?

[00:22:58] Mark Ritter: that's

[00:23:05] Mark Ritter: and stability is good. But I think a little bit of diversity and turnover isn't too bad either.

[00:23:22] I don't know how many of them would actually want to go out and actively say this, but they, the shared sentiment is that the boards present a major opportunity for evolution. Just like what you were saying, mark. Also, because culture starts from the top. Like if you think about the role of the board, and actually you said this in your episode with Anson and the value of paid members, paid board members who are actually qualified to help advise the business.

[00:24:07] I mean against that other 99.5% that you talked about of the alternatives that people use to credit unions. So are we meeting our members' expectations? How are we faring against competition? Like are we able to compete in this shifting market? And I think you need board members also who are both. Yes, they should.

[00:24:44] Certainly there's diversity in terms of demographics, but I think there's also diversity in terms of experience. Like do they have a lot of experience in tech, customer experience, scaling organizations, transformation, like those are the kinds of perspectives you would want sitting at the board [00:25:00] level.

[00:25:19] Nenuca Syquia: Why do you think, do you think it's the youth mark that makes them nervous, like 30 or 35 feels young for them to serve on a board?

[00:25:26] Mark Ritter: I, I, it relative, I, many of them would look at that as their children or the more kind of the perspective of their children. Or I, I honestly think they're more worried about shaking things up a little too much stability is valued in a credit on a credit union board.

[00:26:02] Uncertainty means danger because you don't know what's out there. It's almost like people will choose the P, the thing, the pain that they know today versus the hope of what could be, but it's not very clear of what that could reward could possibly be. And this also ties into our. Bias for against risk and loss like we loss aversion is something that we all share.

[00:26:46] And again, this is not unique to credit unions. This is across the board.

[00:27:19] I like community. Is there anything that you've seen so far where credit Union should start thinking about so they can survive and prosper and not have to sell out to the largest credit union? They can.

[00:27:39] Mark Ritter: And relevant.

[00:27:41] I think that's the key mark. The relevancy, and I think by the way, credit unions are the. Best secret that should not be kept. I wish more people could find out about them. Like we have to change how credit unions talk about themselves and talk to cust potential customers about themselves also. So [00:28:00] that's one thing for sure.

[00:28:21] They're committed to a very specific mission and member base to support that. Fervent love for that mission does create resistance to change. So how then do, do you evolve that so that this expression of this mission does become relevant to the new customers that you're trying to reach? I, there are two things that I think of.

[00:29:06] And part of that could also be helping people reframe. So sometimes people might think, oh, if we are too fast, we're actually sacrificing the human relationship or the human experience. And we pride ourselves on being very human based. So the human interaction is better even though it's slower. But if leaders can help their people reframe, actually reframe for themselves too.

[00:29:50] Why? When you have fast approvals, there's less stress for members. When you have clear digital flows, that means members are less confused. So you're still members first, [00:30:00] but it's expressed differently. So again, this is a way that they can stay relevant. The other way that I think that they can be. More successful in terms of staying very local in their focus.

[00:30:31] So they need to extract that and distill them into what I would call principles, for lack of a better word. So making it explicit so that people don't have to guess what it means to say, we're going to prioritize the relationship over this. So it might be in cases of income variability, we're gonna prioritize consistency over peak earnings.

[00:31:12] Mark Ritter: Who is a good credit union client for you to and your company to work with? What do you like? Who? You mean

[00:31:22] Mark Ritter: Yeah. Profile. Who do you, who do you like to work with? What's a client for you?

[00:31:33] Mark Ritter: great people.

[00:31:52] Consider new possibilities, new perspectives. 'cause they're very open to that and they're curious about what else could they [00:32:00] be doing even better. So, but, and they're doing it before the pain is really there so that they could actually focus on driving good outcomes. But I'll say it's very rare that we get clients who are pre change and who are not in the thick of it.

[00:32:38] To several thousand people because you're experiencing a level of pain in terms of complexity when you're 50 people and you know this mark with your organization. Yes, you can still manage a lot through relationships, although there's a lot that can be learned in terms of. Building an organizational system that actually works based on your strategy, it's a little less painful.

[00:33:16] I have, so we could do a whole other podcast, mark, just on merger Stallone and when they're going through digital transformation to, because one of the mistakes that I see, not just in the credit union space, but across other industries also, is the idea that if we find the right technology and we buy it, we install it, things are going to change.

[00:34:00] Mark Ritter: Manuka, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been great. I'll have to have you back again. I think we could have gone for about three hours.

[00:34:10] Mark Ritter: So I'll wrap it up. Tell people where they could get in contact with boxed.

[00:34:21] My name is spelled N-E-N-U-C-A and my last name is S-Y-Q-U-I-A. I'm the only one that you will find for better or for worse. I'm the only in Kuia out there.

[00:34:36] Nenuca Syquia: I have it. And I have Akia Nka too.

[00:34:44] Check her out if you're in a credit union and need some help on the organization getting rid of some of those pain points there. She does a wonderful job. I'm really excited to go talk in depth with her today. And this is Mark Ritter, your host of Credit Union [00:35:00] Conversations. Please subscribe on your favorite audio platform, so whenever you're at the gym or driving to work, it just pops right up and you can hear the latest shows we drop every Tuesday.