Passing the torch: A conversation with Jim Nussle and Scott Simpson

As hundreds of credit union advocates gather this week for America’s Credit Unions Congressional Caucus in Washington, D.C., the movement stands at an important moment of transition. Outgoing President and CEO Jim Nussle welcomed incoming President and CEO Scott Simpson to kick off the event with a fireside chat.

This conversation between Nussle and Simpson wasn’t just a reflection on the past. It was a rallying call for the future. Their chat highlights the power of cooperation, the urgency of advocacy, and the responsibility credit union leaders carry to ensure the movement’s continued strength. As the credit union system faces new challenges and opportunities, their message is clear: unity, storytelling, and relentless advocacy will define the future.

Nussle: Scott, you’ve been called a “super advocate” for credit unions. Let me start out with a real tough one. Tell us about your journey. How did you get here?

Simpson: I’ve been defending the credit union business model for more than 22 years, and doing it in one of the most hostile anti-credit union environments in the country. And that does something to you.

I'm a political hack, and something about cooperative finance and defending what all of you do for a living is, it turns out, it's an honor. This is one of the coolest things you could possibly do. I mean, you've got the nobility—the cause—and there are many noble causes out there. You've got 144 million people, this mass of America that loves their credit unions. And then we've got the resources and the machinery of the credit union system all coupled together. From a political practitioner's perspective, it's like heaven.

I loved working at the state system level and I think from an advocacy perspective, having a system that reaches across the breadth of every state house in the country, that's the laboratory. So, I just felt like I had the ability to kind of pivot from that to the national stage.

Nussle: Advocacy is messy, especially today when politics can feel more divided than ever. How do you see the challenges, chaos and competition of advocacy in this environment?

Simpson: What’s great about credit unions is that it transcends political ideology. It genuinely does. Not every issue can do that, but the social mission, the heart is fantastic, but there's this kind of private sector business solution that you can deliver. I think one of the challenges we have as a national association, as a movement nationally, is we have to make sure that we're always in position to endure wherever that ideological pendulum swings. Now the pendulum is flailing 100 different directions and it's much harder to predict where. But one thing I'm absolutely certain of is this business model has to endure wherever it goes.

Nussle: How do we maintain that alignment with credit unions being at the forefront? Whether it's messaging, or storytelling, or the way that we introduce policy into the equation?

Simpson: You're going to get sick of me talking about storytelling, but the transactional work [credit unions] do every day changes the lives of people, and you know that. The worry I have is that the optics of our success will move faster than the story, than the humanity of what we’re doing, and we will lose policy battles based on those optics. We have to lean into that story, telling the humanity of what we do, because it’s absolutely true, as I’ve seen in my own life, and it transforms lives.

Americans can find that pursuit of happiness, that dream. We need to be better at helping you see the horizon and convening the family in a way that allows us to meet them where they’re at.

Nussle: As you step into this role, what do you see as the key challenges we must tackle together?

Simpson: We can't get lost in in little things. So for me, that is how I'm forming my list is keeping the airplane flying and then rebuilding the machine. …Everything that we do as a national trade association, there are two lenses…what does the policymaking community think? …And I think the organizational imperative of this association is to defend and enhance the operating environment for credit unions.

We ought to put everything through that lens. Every decision, every, every view that you have is to put it through the lens of ‘What does the policymaking community think of that?’ We don't get too many bites of the apple. We have to be as succinct as distilled and potent in our messaging to them as we possibly can be. I hope we can, as a system, figure out defining the absolute organizational imperative of our trade association advocacy systems and go make that.

Nussle: If you could change one perception policymakers have about credit unions, what would it be?

Simpson: There is a perception that as a credit union grows, it departs from its capacity to deliver on the philosophy, the organizing, originating philosophy of creating.

I know that growth amongst the family, in whatever form it takes and the history that we've walked, is a source of some frustration. But that narrative is 1,000% false. Scale drives value and credit union members. As credit unions grow and gain capacity and efficiency, the delivery on Ed Filene and Roy Bergengren currents promise is more perfectly delivered, and that's not to take away from the proximity and capacity of the mighty credit unions that are the lifeblood core. ...We call them quantum credit unions in Utah because small is not the right word.

There's power in every credit union that we have and their capability. But I think the narrative that I would dispel today is that somehow...as a credit union grows, regardless of its size, that something's changed and that's a lie.

Nussle: As you know, the members are at the center of everything we do. What do you need from them? What's your call to action?

Simpson: That's a great question. The needs are multifaceted, but I think the emotional discipline to stay united. In whatever that means. If that means wrestling with your national trade association and making sure that I see what you see. But we have to be emotionally disciplined, and recognize that we will not win divided.

Secure your spot for Governmental Affairs Conference 2026. We are entering another pivotal year for the industry, and we want you to be there to shape the future. Join incoming CEO Scott Simpson and thousands of your peers at GAC, in Washington, March 1 - 5, 2026. Registration is now open.