On the Shoulder of Giant | Jim Phillips, CIO of SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union

As CIO of SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union — one of the largest federally chartered credit unions in the country at nearly $37 billion — Jim has spent his career on both sides of financial services: big national banks, Big Six consulting, and now more than a decade in the credit union movement.In this conversation with host Joe, he talks about why SchoolsFirst has no growth targets, how they grew deposits without chasing CD rates, what happened when they audited every AI tool in the building (there were about 120), and the question keeping a lot of credit union leaders up at night: what does "people helping people" mean when members start sending their AI agents to talk to yours?Also covered: hiring outside bank talent without losing the mission, why an automation that works fine at small scale can fall over at two million members, and how to talk to your team honestly about roles that are going to change.WHAT'S IN THIS EPISODEWhy SchoolsFirst has no growth goals and no merger goals. The credit union is laser focused on serving the educational community and their families, and growth and financial performance are treated as outcomes of that focus rather than targets to chase. When deposits got tight across the industry, SchoolsFirst didn't chase CD rates — Jim describes that money as transient, gone the moment a better rate opens across the street. Instead they doubled down on school district relationships and organic membership growth, capturing direct deposits from school employees. The result: a return to pre-pandemic growth rates across all markets, driven by word of mouth and reputation rather than mass marketing or TV advertising.The AI inventory that surprised everyone. SchoolsFirst brought in an outside firm to assess every AI tool running in production or under evaluation anywhere in the credit union. The count came back at roughly 120. Jim walks through what came next: grouping tools into buckets by use case, rationalizing heavy duplication across platform vendors now shipping embedded AI, and standing up a formal intake and governance process reviewed by architecture, security, and strategy — specifically to keep rogue agents out of production.What "people helping people" means when agents talk to agents. If a member sends their AI agent to talk to the credit union's AI agent, what part of that is personal? SchoolsFirst is deploying AI internally — helping underwriting approve more loans to more members, running bots that improve answer consistency across channels — but has deliberately held back on member-facing bots that could dead-end a member with no one there to help.Why credit unions can't afford to be wrong. Jim's line is blunt: a big bank can spend $50 million on a project that goes sideways, call it lessons learned, and move on. Not-for-profit financial cooperatives are spending members' money, and that changes the math on every technology decision.CHAPTERS00:00 Meet Jim Phillips, CIO of SchoolsFirst FCU01:36 Meet Jim Phillips, CIO of SchoolsFirst FCU03:03 From national banks and consulting to credit unions05:19 Why member-owned changes the whole conversation05:49 Twenty moves and the "credit union flipper" mindset07:33 Why he stopped chasing the spotlight10:02 No growth goals — growth as a byproduct11:33 Growing deposits without chasing CD rates11:48 Mergers, scale, and a consolidating industry13:47 Big banks can be wrong. Credit unions can't.14:01 Bringing in outsiders without losing the mission17:30 Culture fit versus the resume18:54 Understanding the past before you innovate20:57 Agentic AI: when agents talk to agents22:11 Where SchoolsFirst uses AI today23:07 Why member-facing bots aren't live yet24:20 The AI inventory: 120 tools discovered25:06 Building an AI governance framework27:25 Vendor hype, board pressure, citizen developers30:36 Upskilling teams as roles change