BECU / Make the board cry
Opportunity
With a new CEO at the helm, Boeing Employee Credit Union (BECU) embarked on significant strategic changes.
However, she faced the challenge of gaining the board's approval for her revamped strategy, particularly in targeting new customer segments. Her chance to pitch her case was a pivotal 2-day board meeting, where she needed to make a strong and persuasive argument.
“We want our Board Members to understand these members struggles so well that they cry…and then say they are willing to do whatever we need to do to help solve them.”
Beverly Anderson (President and CEO)
Impact
Following the experience, the Board unanimously agreed to support the strategy. Many came up to the CEO later in the evening to specifically comment on how unique and impactful this meeting had been.
The Board generated 150+ execution ideas during the interactive experience, many of which are currently being prioritized for execution.
I led a cross-departmental team of 5 to achieve our goal in 8 weeks. We started with a big vision and brainstormed over 20 ideas, creating quick low-fi prototypes within 48 hours. We then selected a mix of interactive experiences and videos to convey our message.
Within 2 weeks, we were on-site shooting footage for 4 documentary-style videos and 2 interactive choose-your-own-adventure experiences.
For the board meeting in addition to creating the stimuli, we dressed the room to feel like the different customer’s homes to really take the Board out of their “meeting mentality”. We then split into 2 teams of 15 facilitated the experience, and captured their output on post-its. The result was over 96 implementation ideas that had the board envisioning and excited about the future.
You made it this far, so here’s a fun fact about this project.
It was an experience for ghosts as well
The meeting was hosted at The Lodge at St. Edwards - a Catholic seminary abandoned for 40 years and rumored to be haunted. Casper shouldered all the blame whenever we couldn't find something we knew we brought or when last-minute hiccups popped up.
