mmm remember everything is a conversation may your conversations today be thoughtful productive and memorable my name is Gail Tabora and I am the president and CEO of sac Federal Credit Union being the first award winner I was really moved by the fact that my employees nominated me I think that really speaks to the organization and who I am as a leader and they trust me and I think that that was so important my approach to leadership starts with the fact that I'm an introvert by nature so I really prefer one-on-one
conversations and small group meetings I've obviously been able to compensate that an uncomfortable in large group setting and because of that I think I develop much deeper relationships with people because those conversations are always very important I've had examples where I had to really prove my confidence I worked for Enron and when it was obvious that things were changing and I was young and I made the decision that it just didn't that my leadership my my ethical standards and so I made
the choice to leave I took a cotton paid to do that but it was important to me I was confident enough in my abilities to leave a very good job and seek another opportunity we are not afraid to look for creative ideas to solve problems or to look for solutions one example is we recently took a part of our fourth floor and turned it into an area for snow days for employees that need a place to bring their children it if the school does call a snow day or a day care closes and we encourage that with all of our
employees to really take a look at all the different possibilities in any situation one example of collaboration here at the credit union was when we built our new corporate headquarters the entire team actually worked with our architects to make sure that we were creating an environment that really is conducive to collaboration among all our different departments compassion is the thread that runs really through everything that we do our employees volunteer hundreds of hours to so many nonprofit
organizations in the Omaha area they really do live our value or motto of people helping people and they do that every day at the credit union my advice to future I can Leadership Award nominees would be to really be authentic in your leadership style I think that it's very important to do what you're comfortable with and to lead with that authentic style that that you're comfortable with I've been involved with I can for over 20 years and I've seen the growth in so many women because of
this program in this organization so to be the first recipient it's just truly an honor for me [Music] you