Michigan State University Federal Credit Union

Uh, I think it's [censored].

It's those to- right there behi- or, um, on the other side of MS- uh, MSU Credit Union.

Mm-hmm.

Um, she stays in those high-rise-

With all the movement going on in college football, this one does not involve the college football teams, but it involves two credit unions that come together across those two.

And I didn't see this one coming because geographically, they're kind of... rather dispersed, MSUFCU, who happen to be always a big presence at VentureTech.

So I'll be curious to talk to them.

I'm sure they won't be able to say too much and they're not on stage talking about this, but see if we can get any more inside information.

You bring those together and apparently they're going to keep, I guess this makes sense because now they've got much more national reach, they're going to keep the University Federal Credit Union name at the parent level.

But they will keep those regional names.

MSUFCU has been very aggressive and proactive in terms of expanding their own footprint.

I've noticed a lot of signage for them as they've moved into the Chicago market as well.

And the location again, Chloe?

Yep, the location will be at MSUFCU headquarters on Abbott Road in downtown East Lansing.

They generously provided the space for us, and we can't wait to host it there.

All right.

'Cause $100 million of that $401 that Michigan State received was earmarked towards Spartan Ventures, which is sort of their...

It's not like an NIL collective, it's not, it's not really the same thing as that, as what those used to be, but it's an affiliate company work- working directly with the university that's supposed to make brand deals like when they, when the jersey patch MSU FCU, uh, on the uniform, that's supposed to make it easier, and other third party things like that in NIL.

It's, uh, a lot of that went to Spartan Ventures as a seed investment, so not necessarily a donation.

Uh, that's, that's a key little thing, uh, in that as well.

Whitney is the chief growth officer at Sunward Credit Union, a $4.6 billion credit union serving more than 170,000 members.

Before Sunward, she spent seven years at MSU Federal Credit Union, then became CEO at Elements Financial, and later built her own consulting practice advising credit unions on growth and strategy.

She also just published a book, She Walked Anyway, about what happened in between.

Whitney, welcome to the show.

Well, I am originally from Michigan.

I went to Michigan State for undergrad and had the opportunity to be one of the very first interns at Lansing Automakers Federal Credit Union right when I was in high school.

And then when I went to Michigan State, I actually worked for MSU Federal Credit Union and had an amazing experience there.

After graduation, though, I went to work for Kraft Foods for 13 years.

Is their financial life actually improving? The Debi app pays people for paying down debt and working through financial education.

Banking credit union partners fund it, Royal Credit Union runs it, and so does MSU Federal Credit Union.

Users of Debi have paid down more than $73 million in debt and saved $149 million toward their goals.

Sit on that for a second.