Mentor Sessions

All Mentor Sessions will be located at the Washington Convention Center in Salon F.

The Cooperative Way

Tom Decker is the Director of Domestic Cooperative Development at the National Cooperative Business Association. He is responsible for managing grant and contract programs within the Cooperative Development portfolio.

From 2006 to 2010, Tom took a hiatus from his consulting to become National Program Director of the Credit Union Center for Social Impact Management at the National Credit Union Foundation. In that role, he led the Credit Union Development Education (DE) Program and Social Impact Management Institute, which focused on training credit union staff and volunteers about cooperative principles and values, credit union philosophy and development, social responsibility, and their business application in today’s world.

Tom’s first experience in the credit union movement dates to 1999 when he was Director of Executive Development for the Credit Union National Association (CUNA.)  His programs included the Leadership Development Institute, Executive Boot Camp, World-Class Customer Service Executive Institute, Community Development Credit Union Institute, Certified Executive Program, and CUNA’s Management School.

Tom’s Hickory Creek Consulting specializes in leveraging the power of good through the facilitation of strategic planning, ethical decision-making, mediation and dispute resolution, organizational culture transformation, teambuilding, and outdoor leadership training, among others. His clients are diverse in asset size and structure, ranging from non-profits to cooperatives to socially responsibly entrepreneurs who wish to build organizational capacity and financial strength by leveraging their human capital and societal mission.

Prior to his consulting and providing leadership development for credit unions, Tom spent over eighteen years in higher education performing as administrator and faculty member. He has taught courses in business ethics, leadership, western civilization, social responsibility, and strategic planning among others.  For two decades now he has worked with adult learners.

Tom’s bachelors’ degrees in sociology and religious studies were awarded by Ball State University in Indiana, and a master’s degree in student development by Indiana University.  A graduate of the Dispute Resolution Program at Hamline University’s School of Law, he is a certified mediator.  Tom is also an International Credit Union Development Educator (I-CUDE) with designations earned in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and the Caribbean.

Innovation in Financial Services?

As the Chief Research + Innovation Officer of the Filene Research Institute, George Hofheimer is responsible for arming credit unions with the practical, yet creative ideas they need to compete on their members’ behalf. To do this, he manages an extensive pipeline of research projects and innovation programs, including the prestigious i3 group. Prior to joining Filene, George spent 8 years leading the executive education function for the Credit Union Executives Society (CUES).

Before his career in consumer finance, George spent his formative years in Uzbekistan working for such disparate organizations as the US Peace Corps, Price Waterhouse, the American Council of International Education and Qora-Tepa Village School. George earned an MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and currently serves as the chairman of the board at Willy Street Coop, a $30 million, 20,000 member grocery cooperative.

George resides in Madison, Wisconsin with his lovely wife, Carrie and is the proud father of two wonderful boys.

Community Development

Lois Kitsch joined the National Credit Union Foundation as the National Program Manager of the REAL Solutions program in December of 2006.

In her prior role as the Director of Field Projects with the Filene Research Institute, Lois piloted the REAL Solutions program in three leagues which implemented and tested new business models designed to serve new target markets, including young adults, immigrants and modest income households.

Financial Literacy

Annamaria Lusardi is the Denit Trust Professor of Economics and Accountancy at the George Washington University School of Business. Previously, she was the Joel Z. and Susan Hyatt Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College, where she taught for twenty years. She has also taught at Princeton University, the University of Chicago Public Policy School, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and Columbia Business School. In 2008 she was a visiting scholar at Harvard Business School. Moreover, she is the Academic Director of the Global Center for Financial Literacy, and the Director of the Financial Literacy Center, a joint Center with the Rand Corporation and the Wharton School created with the support of the Social Security Administration. She holds a Ph.D. degree in economics from Princeton University.

Dr Lusardi has worked on several projects on financial education in both the United States and abroad. She has developed tools to improve retirement planning and is currently working on several initiatives to promote workplace financial education, including a financial fitness toolkit for the New York Stock Exchange Foundation. She has advised the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, FINRA Investor Education Foundation, the Dutch Central Bank, the OECD, and the World Bank on issues related to financial literacy and saving. In 2009, she served as a faculty advisor for the Office of Financial Education of the U.S. Treasury.

Dr Lusardi won numerous research awards. Among them is a research fellowship from the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago, a faculty fellowship from the John M. Olin Foundation, and a junior and senior faculty fellowship from Dartmouth College. She is the recipient of the Fidelity Pyramid Prize, a $50,000 award to authors of published applied research that best helps address the goal of improving lifelong financial well-being for Americans. She has written more than fifty academic articles and edited two books: Overcoming the Saving Slump: How to Increase the Effectiveness of Financial Education and Saving Programs published by the University of Chicago Press in 2008, and Financial Literacy: Implications for Retirement Security and the Financial Marketplace, joint with Olivia Mitchell, published by Oxford University Press in 2011.

Be a Leader, Not a Follower


Jeffrey Bosco is vice president and product executive of Life & Health Products for CUNA Mutual Group. In this role he leads overall business strategy and product management for these products. Bosco is also accountable for execution and financial results of these product lines.

Bosco joined CUNA Mutual Group in 2011 as a consultant, then hired as vice president of Product Development. He assumed his current role in November 2011.

Prior to joining CUNA Mutual Group, Bosco held numerous positions at American Family Insurance Group. The roles he held include agent, national sales trainer, district sales manager, state director, sales vice president, vice president and COO of American Family Life Insurance Company.

Bosco graduated from The American College in 2008 with a Master’s in leadership and earned a Bachelor of Business Administration, entrepreneurship and finance from Baylor University in 1987. He also holds a Six Sigma certification, CLF Chartered Leadership Fellow.

Bosco is a member of several industry trade associations.