Foreign Dignitaries at Vantage

Credit unions are truly a global community. You’ll find over 52,000 credit unions in more than 100 countries with nearly 200,000,000 members. And if you were at Vantage Credit Union’s Bridgeton headquarters recently, you would have found a delegation of six Malawi (Africa) credit union leaders there shaking hands and enjoying the hospitality.

Vantage has always been dedicated to promoting the cooperative nature of the credit union movement on a global scale, and we were glad to host the six leaders from Malawi. The Republic of Malawi is a small southeastern African country, formerly known as Nyasaland, with a population of nearly 14 million.

The visitors, led by Sylvester Kadzola, CEO of the Malawi Credit Union League, represented five credit unions from three separate districts. Each delegate was a president or executive officer of his credit union. Together, the contingency had more than two decades of industry experience.

Vantage was just one of the credit unions the delegates visited while in the St. Louis region. While here, they discussed such topics as lending practices, collections, IT procedures, and marketing tools. The international visitors then enjoyed a tour of the branch along with an overview of operations and an informative questions and answer session with Vantage leaders.


The delegates are seated L to R: Albert Moyo, Mzimba Teacher’s SACCO (Northern Region); Faith Manganda, Malawi Union of Savings & Credit Cooperatives (MUSCCO); Itai Msiska, Karonga Teachers SACCO (Northern Region); Brian Chyuse, Fodya SACCO LTD (Central Region); Sylvester Kadzola, Malawi Union of Savings & Credit Cooperatives (MUSCCO); Charles Nyekanyeka, Bvumbwe Community SACCO (Southern Region).

Standing behind them are Vantage staff: Jennifer Allemann, Public Relations Specialist; Jim Cochran, VP Retail Lending & Sales; Doug Ruckman, EVP Finance; Jodi Harris, Director of Training; Kathy Palmer, VP Marketing; Cindy Mojeske, Collections Manager; Toby Ragaini, VP Technovation; Hubert H. Hoosmann, Jr., President/CEO