Profile: Julene Toews Dewis, Stride Credit Union

Julene Toews Dewis

VP People & Culture, Stride Credit Union

Career:

Start in the credit union system: 2005

Start in the financial services industry: 2004

In high school, Julene says she wanted to become a financial planner. She lost her dad suddenly when she was 16 and watched her mom navigate her family’s finances. She realized that having the right advisors in your life at the right time truly makes a world of difference.

After graduating from university, Julene started her career at Portage Credit Union as a lender/mutual fund representative. Shortly after, she moved to Edmonton where she worked in a similar role with Servus Credit Union. While at Servus Credit Union, Julene says they had a wonderful training centre with great facilitators and remembers sitting back, thinking “that’s a super cool job, I want that job”.

When she relocated back to Winnipeg, luck would have it for Julene that Steinbach Credit Union was looking for a trainer to help build their training programs, and she got the job. She spent eight years at Steinbach Credit Union building core training, sales and service and a leadership development programs, and experienced her first taste of leadership as the Employee Development Manager.

When Julene’s son was born, she moved back home to Portage la Prairie. She says the commute to Steinbach was too much, so she decided to stay in the training world but work for herself. She started a consulting company and offered her services to a variety of organizations (and many credit unions). For eight years, Julene designed training programs and workshops and also provided HR support to smaller organizations.

Julene says she loved consulting, but really missed having a team and building an organization from the inside. When Stride Credit Union was looking for a VP of People and Culture to continue building the People and Culture function, she says it felt like the best next step for her. Julene has been with Stride Credit Union for six months, and says it’s been a wonderful team to be a part of.

A typical day:

Julene starts her day prioritizing the items that need to get done. If possible, she likes to do creative work in the morning (designing, planning, strategizing, writing, etc.) and schedule meetings and task-based work for the afternoon. She uses that as a guide to frame her day, but other priorities tend to pop up and throw a wrench into the best laid plans. Julene says she loves variety, so she’s always okay with things popping up – plus, that’s just the life in HR.

Continuous learning and improvement:

Julene loves intentionally learning from others. She has a few mentors she meets with regularly, people who are further down the HR and leadership path who she goes to with questions, ideas, or advice. She also seeks out conferences and workshops that provide her with tools and inspiration and is grateful to work for an organization that supports her desire to learn. She says she loves the JFK quote “leadership and learning are indispensable of each other”. To be a good leader, we must keep learning, and Julene stands by that.

Keys to success:

Juelene says the key to success is great people – coaches who saw potential in her, mentors who pushed her, colleagues who built her up, her family who supported and encouraged her. Julene’s best advice to anyone is to surround yourself with people who make you a better version of yourself.

Recommended reading for young leaders:

Julene recommends The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. She says it’s an oldie but a goodie, and a great, short overview of keys to helping employees succeed – strong expectations, clear feedback and accountability. She also loves The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni – we think good teams just happen; not true, they are made.

Guiding principles:

Julene’s guiding principles are:

  • Pay it forward – give the good fortune you’ve received to others.

  • Believe good intention in others until proven otherwise.

  • The hardest conversations are often the ones we most need to have – have them and have them respectfully.

  • Be open (to new ideas, to feedback, to seeing something a new way).

  • Leave this world (your home, your work) better because you’ve been there.

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