CUShopper hires Fortune 500 CEO, downsizes sales field staff

GLENDALE, Calif. - CUShopper has hired a former Fortune 500 CEO to lead the credit union member shopping network. CUShopper has named Glen Raiger as its new CEO, taking over the reins from Adam Wicks Walker who will remain as chairman of the board. "This is quite common for guys who start companies. I'm going to go back to doing the things that I'm really, really good at and that's strategy," said Walker. Walker said as CEO he was heavily involved in the daily communications and operations, but now he will spend more time on the "vision" of CUShopper. Paul Fiore, founder of Digital Insight, made a similar move last year, giving up the CEO title to focus in on DI's strategic plans. In comes Raiger who has over 20 years of experience in executive positions with Fortune 500 companies, including for the Coldwell Banker/Koll Company, Granite Investments, PurOptix and a biotech firm. Raiger comes to CUShopper with significant merger and acquisition experience. "There are many facets of CUShopper that I find compelling and I look forward to building upon," said Raiger. "I don't think there has been a concentrated focus on developing businesses that extend the credit union's reach to the member. I plan to leverage our position and take CUShopper to the next level of value for members and our credit union partners." CUShopper has also laid off approximately 20 of its regional sales professionals, as well as employees in other operational areas of the company. Walker said these were strategic layoffs that the company did in response to client feedback from a CUShopper survey. "We have been doing a performance assessment. When you go from 13 to 200 employees in a year, there's going to be places you find efficiencies and have to cut positions," said Walker. Walker said reasons for the layoffs include credit unions telling him that they didn't want frequent on-site visits from CUShopper field staff; they want to administer the CUShopper component using Web functionality; and want to deal with fewer people overall at CUShopper. "We used to have one person that enrolls the credit union, another that kicks off the marketing campaign, another that sets up the Web site, and another that makes office visits. What we got back from credit unions was very rarely do they want or need an office visit. So we eliminated that overlapping between our field and internal sales people," said Walker. He said the company has more than adequate funding, and while it did cut employees in its field sales staff and middle management layer, it added about 15 employees in other areas. One of the more notable additions was the hiring of Sandra Choi as vice president eCommerce. Prior to joining CUShopper, Choi was the director of Electronic Commerce for E! Entertainment where she launched and managed E! Entertainment's online store Shop.eonline.com. -pgentile@cutimes.com