On the road to achieving those goals, he faced the hurdle of a board that was "the definition of entrenchment." It had changed very little over the years, had minimal racial diversity and included only one female. One board member was a former CEO of the credit union who had been serving in a leadership capacity there for 50 years, he noted.

In addition, the board lacked term limits and its election process blocked access to a diverse pool of candidates. "The board had turned into a club, with friends referring friends to the board," he said.

Romero described two incidents that demonstrated how disconnected the board members were from the communities the credit union was aiming to serve. First, in a meeting with a local community leader, Romero was asked for a photo of his board. When the community leader viewed the photo, she said she could tell the credit union didn't have the right support in place to reach its service goals in low-income communities.

The second clue that it was time to reform the board, Romero said, came in the form of a disparaging comment: One board member suggested that when the credit union makes an auto loan for a low-income borrower, a GPS tracker should be placed on the borrower's car, so that when they don't make their payment, the car can be located for repossession. "That made me realize we had the wrong representation on the board," he said, noting that low-income people are not necessarily high-risk borrowers.

The first step to transforming the board was providing education – in addition to learning the differences between low-income consumers and high-risk borrowers, leadership received education on empathy and the Spanish language, and even participated in a poverty simulation to better understand the challenges some people face.

Then, third-party consultants were brought in to help board members understand the importance of diverse representation in leadership, as well as succession planning. Establishing a formal board nominations committee and offering members more choices during board elections was a turning point for the credit union, Romero said. "Every time we had an election [in the past], members would complain and say, 'Where are the women? Where are the people of color?'"

The board endured "a painful path to admitting it needed term limits," he said. At one point, a frustrated board member stood up and resigned in the middle of a meeting, the CEO recalled.

Romero also challenged the theory that it's difficult to find qualified minorities to serve on a credit union board. When three board seats were open, he connected with the Seattle chapter of the Association of Latino Professionals For America, which provided him with 13 resumes. The professionals behind two of those resumes soon filled seats on Seattle CU's board.

"They were young Latinos, they started questioning things we were doing and they gave a different perspective," Romero said of the two new board members. "That's when we started to see change and renewal, and the momentum kept growing. The bar is now set high to get on the board, when before it was, 'We'll take whoever we can get.'"