David Sweiderk

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President and CEO
SECU

David Sweiderk was named president and CEO of SECU in 2018 after serving as executive vice president and chief operating officer at Arizona’s OneAZ Credit Union. Through his leadership, SECU successfully exceeded $4 billion in assets and ranked among the top 60 credit unions nationwide. Sweiderk has more than 25 years of experience in the financial industry and has served in leadership in several financial institutions.

During the pandemic, Sweiderk and SECU’s more than 260,000 employees delivered more than $400,000 of relief to SECU members, the community, small businesses and school systems, while also maintaining the credit union’s financial strength. “SECU’s biggest success to date is our overall response to the pandemic as we were faced with unprecedented challenges. With many messages, coming from different directions, we remained focused in what we believe and did what we do best, we led with our hearts and served with an extraordinary amount of empathy,” he said.

What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned in your career?

The most important lesson that I have learned in my career is that being a subject matter expert is not enough. If you want to be an exceptional leader, you must demonstrate incredible authenticity, empathy, courage, grit, perseverance and vulnerability. Showing vulnerability was critical during the pandemic, as credibility and trust are earned via actions, not words, and sharing in these trying times really emphasizes the human element in leadership, which leads to true inspiration if one is value-centric and purpose-driven. In other words, you must lead with your head, heart and guts.

This profile is part of The Daily Record's Power 100 List for 2023-2024. Information used in this profile was sourced from the honoree. See the full list at origintdrdev.wpengine.com.