Why This CU Rebuilt Its Entire Digital Front Door
From Main Street AI by Multimodal
June 9, 2026 · 50 min
About this episode
Courtney Rowan discusses the digital transformation at Citadel Credit Union and the strategies that led to significant improvements in member onboarding and engagement.
Ankur Patel interviews Courtney Rowan, SVP and Chief Digital and Transformation Officer at Citadel Credit Union. Courtney has spent 27 years watching digital go from a side project to the only front door, and she brings the rare full-arc operator perspective on what it takes to make that shift work. She breaks down the non-documentary onboarding rebuild that lifted funnel conversion 212%, the CDP/CXP stack overhaul behind true member individualization, and the three-pillar AI steering committee setting Citadel's strategy.Guest: Courtney Rowan, SVP and Chief Digital and Transformation Officer, Citadel Credit UnionHost: Ankur Patel, CEO & Founder, Multimodal0:00 Introduction: Meet Courtney0:55 What Courtney owns at Citadel1:54 Digital evolution: from side project to the front door5:00 Rewiring piecemeal digital channels so AI can be excellent7:51 One continuous experience across every channel10:04 What a charter expansion actually involves13:07 Onboarding with no branch: human-led, digitally enabled18:07 The fintech onboarding playbook19:46 The results: 212% funnel conversion and more21:35 Gen Z, values, and why credit unions get stuck25:15 Lots of data, no unified brain…
People in this episode
Host: Ankur Patel
Guest: Courtney Rowan
Topics covered
- digital transformation
- credit unions
- AI strategy
- onboarding
- customer experience
Keywords
- digital front door
- funnel conversion
- AI steering committee
- customer data platform
- fintech onboarding
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Citadel Credit Union
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