Research and Strategy
Central 1
Aligning 250 credit unions around a shared digital strategy
Built life-event strategy kits that more than 250 credit unions could deploy locally, giving a fragmented sector one shared model without flattening what made each member local.
- Role
- Strategy and Service Design Lead
- Focus
- Executive workshops, Personas, Journeys, Reusable strategy framework
Context
Central 1 is the wholesale financial services partner for more than 250 credit unions across Canada. It needed to give that network a set of life-event strategy kits, grounded in real member behaviour, that any member credit union could pick up and put to work.
The challenge
Most banking strategy is written for the bank, not the moment. A first-time homebuyer does not think in terms of a mortgage funnel. The kits had to start from the life event, map the member’s actual journey, and describe how a credit union of any size could meet it, without flattening the local character of each one.
My role
I led strategy and service design across the work, partnering with Central 1’s research and product teams and aligning stakeholders around a shared model.
Approach
- Reframed each kit from marketing strategy to a life-event playbook a small credit union could deploy locally.
- Built persona families and end-to-end journeys across digital and human touchpoints for events from first home to retirement.
- Closed each kit with a practical play-by-play, the conversations to have and the touchpoints to surface, reviewed for compliance fit.
- Repeated one structure across five kits so the network learned a single mental model.
Outcome
Central 1 gained a reusable strategy framework and a common language its member credit unions could apply consistently, while adapting to their own scale and community.
What I learned
Reframing the work around moments people actually experience changed how stakeholders engaged with it. The same research, told from the member’s side, produced different and better priorities.
Work with me