Profile: Darren Heide, Access Credit Union
Darren Heide
VP, Enterprise Risk Management, Access Credit Union
Career:
Start in the credit union system: 2011
In high school Darren aspired to be an engineer. After taking a variety of courses in his first year of university, he changed direction to business school which ultimately led him to financial services.
Darren joined Access as an Agricultural and Commercial Account Manager after spending a number of years working in the Ag industry. After a year, he took a chance at a term position as a Human Resources Generalist. He really enjoyed HR and the term position transitioned to the Manager of Human Resources role. Darren was in HR for eight years before transitioning into Risk as the Director, Risk & Compliance. This position then evolved into his current role of VP, Enterprise Risk Management. Darren says he is fortunate to have gained experience from different areas of the business, which he feels provides valuable insight and skills that he is able to utilize in his current role and any future roles.
A typical day:
Darren says every day is a new adventure in the world of risk. He plans for and meets regularly with his own and other departments on various initiatives and challenges and provides advice on escalated issues. He provides feedback on proposals, business cases and reports, as well as conducts analysis and writes his own reports. He may need to respond to or support another employee in responding to an issue, evaluate controls, and help implement solutions to prevent or reduce the likelihood of the issue occurring again. Darren also stays informed of changes to the internal and external environment to identify, evaluate, manage, and monitor risk to ensure objectives are being met.
Continuous learning and improvement:
Darren likes to keep an open mind and step outside of his comfort zone to keep learning and growing both personally and professionally, such as joining different boards, coaching sports, training in jiu-jitsu and becoming a mentor. He has also completed numerous post-secondary programs and strives to complete at least one course each year.
Keys to success:
Darren says the biggest contributing factor to his success is a great support network of family, co-workers and mentors who have encouraged and challenged him.
Recommended reading (or other resources) for young leaders:
Darren finds value in staying up to date on current events by following a number of different news sites and then viewing the stories from the lens of his interest, which in his case is around risk. He is also a fan of Reddit and has found some good communities with like-minded interests with different points of view. He says there are a lot of great resources available, and his overall recommendation is to read, listen and engage others in a topic of interest and keep an open mind as you seek to understand the views and experiences of others.
Guiding principles:
Darren’s guiding principles are:
Do good - make a positive difference in the world
Be better - always strive for self-improvement
Own it - take the initiative and responsibility for your situation and your future
Move forward - you can't change the past so focus on changing the future