Annual Review

ACCEL – 2023 Year in Review

2023 has been another successful year for our team at Atlantic Canada’s Collective for Emerging Leaders (ACCEL). We continue to successfully on-board new members each year growing our membership to 73 members spread across all 4 Atlantic Provinces. We have 16 members in NB, 7 in NF, 44 in NS, and 6 in PE representing 20 Credit Unions in total and 3 system partners.

We held our annual Women in Leadership forum in September virtually which had some inspiring and motivational female leaders speak to us on their personal stories which included Sherri Clark, Morell Credit Union, Sally Van De Weil, East Coast Credit Union, Tammy Mercier, Atlantic Central and Vanessa Kuduk, Members Credit Union.

Our annual Emerging Leaders’ Forum was held virtually in December and had inspiring keynote speakers which included Carrie Forbes, League Data, Paul Masterson, Atlantic Central and Tia Upshaw. This forum was held over two days with the second day introducing our new “ACCEL Insights Think Tank” group.

Both virtual events had a large attendance of emerging credit union system professionals who demonstrate an inspired passion for unity and cooperation among Co-operatives.

Shannon Kennedy, Claire Lessel, and Brandon Wells were all in attendance at the 2023 World Credit Union Conference held in Vancouver this July where our very own Brandon Wells was one of this year’s recipients of the “National Young Leaders Award”. Brandon presented to attendees from all over the world.

ACCEL continues to have monthly lunch & learns and networking events to all members. One specific session that was held this year with Karen Kelloway was on – Core Strength Assessments to understand our motivators that was open to all ACCEL members.

In addition to the new ACCEL Insights group, the executive team have also created AMP which is an Atlantic mentoring program that allows ACCEL members to partner with other employees to either be a mentor or mentee.

ACCEL continues to connect emerging leaders with system partners to work on system-wide projects. One of our very own ACCEL members has shared feedback on an opportunity that she was able to participate in.

“Becoming an ACCELerator has presented me with opportunities that I would have never had in the past. Last year I got to be a part of the Your Two Cents series to promote financial literacy all because of ACCEL. In doing so I have gotten to meet and network with other emerging leaders in Atlantic Canada both within and outside of the Credit Union System and my confidence has grown both personally and professionally.”

– Deena Eddison, Atlantic Edge CU

ACCEL has also created additional executive team roles for 2024 which include Member Engagement Co-Lead, Marketing & Communications Lead, Financial Co-Lead, and Persona Development Co-Lead.

We look forward to another successful year in 2024 and hope to continue to onboard more emerging leaders.

Brandon Wells- ACCEL Chair