Fourteen emerging credit union professionals completed the second cohort of the NextGen Network Immersion Program this week, marking a major milestone.
Launched in June 2025, the cohort wrapped up with a capstone event hosted by Patelco Credit Union, drawing participants from credit unions across California, Nevada, and Utah. Fuel Solutions spearheads this 12-month initiative under the direction of California and Nevada’s Credit Unions Director of Professional Development Elise Schexnayder.
“Watching these professionals evolve over the last year has been incredibly rewarding,” Schexnayder said. “We built this program on the belief that leadership is a distinct skill set, and this cohort has embraced that challenge. These graduates return to their credit unions empowered to lead our industry forward across California, Nevada, and Utah.”
The program is built around a straightforward premise that good employees and good leaders are not the same thing. Over the course of the program year, participants worked through four core areas — building career-ready skills, connecting with a tri-state network of peers and leaders, practicing industry advocacy, and deepening their commitment to the credit union mission of “People Helping People.”
For students, that means aligning professional growth with genuine values. For their institutions, it means developing loyal, mission-driven leaders who are ready to take on bigger roles.
The 12-session curriculum moved deliberately from self-awareness to operational strategy to industry-wide perspective. Early sessions grounded participants in foundational leadership concepts through CliftonStrengths-Based Leadership and Leading with Emotional Intelligence. From there, the program drew on well-regarded management frameworks — Gallup’s First, Break All the Rules, Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead, and Kim Scott’s Radical Candor — to build out practical management thinking.
Mid-program sessions tackled day-to-day leadership challenges: coaching effectively, building mentorship partnerships, and navigating workplace conflict without losing momentum. Later sessions broadened the lens, covering internal and external partnership strategies, the history and values behind the credit union movement, and a detailed look at credit union financials — specifically how a not-for-profit structure shapes fiscal decisions and community priorities.
As advocacy remains central to the work credit union leaders accomplish collaboratively with California’s Credit Unions, Nevada’s Credit Unions and Utah’s Credit Unions, it was an integral part of the course work. These sessions prepared participants to represent their credit union members in real legislative settings in Sacramento, Carson City, and Salt Lake City.
The program closed with a full-day event where each participant presented a Business Case to a professional audience. These weren’t theoretical exercises — graduates were expected to identify real organizational challenges, run cost-benefit analyses, and propose solutions tied to measurable strategic goals. It’s a practical demonstration that they can do more than discuss leadership concepts; they can apply them where it counts.
Congratulations to the following NextGen graduates and their respective credit unions:
These 14 professionals return to their credit unions with something more durable than a certificate — a clearer sense of their own leadership identity, a working network across three states, and the practical skills to move their organizations forward.
