From meat cutter to CEO; how one man grew a $10 billion business

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This article was published 28/12/2024 (223 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After 26 years at the helm of Steinbach Credit Union, Glenn Friesen is retiring his post as CEO.

“I’m looking forward to it but it’s also a little unnerving. New deal. So it’s a combination. I’m going to make the best of it. I’m going to do what I can to do my next career that I’ll call retirement,” he said, adding now he will travel with his wife and go golfing more often.

During his time as CEO, Friesen has seen a lot of changes at the financial institution. One of those changes was the evolution of technology in the banking world. He said online banking made it easier for people to look at their balances and account activity and make remote deposits with a phone.

“As new technologies came along we basically looked at them and made sure we had them available,” he said.

Another milestone was seeing the assets of the credit union grow to $1 billion in 2001 after 60 years in business and to a now staggering sum of $10 billion.

“That’s all organic growth. We have not merged or amalgamated with other credit unions over the years. It’s just one person, one service, one product at a time,” he said.

“We have a very efficient model, pretty good products and services, and good rates and basically our belief is that we want to work with our members to help them get to where they want to be.”

Friesen said the key to a successful credit union is giving people what they want and with that measure the business gets promoted by word of mouth.

But it all comes down to leadership and Friesen said a good leader is someone who listens and learns from those around him. A good leader is also open to thoughts and ideas from those around him or her.

“I find that I learn a lot more when I listen then when I talk. And that means I’ll talk to all the staff and learn from them what’s going on, what’s easy, what’s not easy, what should we change and it’s amazing the information they can provide me to help them and could help us all.”

An example of leadership that taught Freisen well was working for Jim Penner of Penner Foods. Friesen started there as a meat cutter and wanting to get a better position in life. Penner paid for him to go to night school to get his certified management accounting degree. It cost $600 a course and Friesen had to take 20 courses over eight years to get his degree. He worked at Penner Foods as an office manager, then as a controller, CFO, and finally as president.

“I learned a lot from Jim Penner,” he said.

When Penner sold the company in 1998, Friesen applied to be the CEO of SCU and ended his career there.

“The one thing I would say is it was a stretch moving from the grocery industry to the financial services industry, but basically we’re buying and selling money here and at the grocery we’re buying and selling food. And the biggest difference I found was people take their money more seriously than their pork and beans. We’re all dealing with people.”

Friesen has some words of advice to his successor Curtis Wennberg who will take over the helm at the end of January. Wennberg worked at Manitoba Public Insurance and HSBC Bank prior to joining SCU.

“I think he’s got a good outlook at the credit union system. He understands it well. He’s got some great people here. Use them, work with them, it’s an organization that is doing well and add your touch to it – your own personal touch to it. I think the culture here and the staff that we have are top notch and maintain that.”