Main Street AI is an immersive content series probing the intricate intersection of humanity and artificial intelligence in the world of business and high-stakes industries.
Journey with us into stories of challenge and triumph of innovators navigating their unique industry mazes, and of the transformative power of AI seamlessly merging into these narratives. Think of it as "Masters of Scale" but customized for visionaries, pioneers, and enthusiasts in the ever-evolving AI-for-business space.
How Orion Brought Fraud and Mortgage Servicing In-House With AI
Ankur Patel interviews Ben Mrva, EVP and Chief Operating Officer at Orion Federal Credit Union.
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Orion Federal Credit Union is a $1.3B credit union in Memphis, Tennessee. Ben, a twenty-year consultant turned COO, explains how Orion found its AI savings by bringing fraud and mortgage servicing in-house and leaning less on consultants, not by cutting staff, and why a data lake has to come before anything bigger.
Guest: Ben Mrva, EVP and Chief Operating Officer, Orion Federal Credit Union
Host: Ankur Patel, CEO & Founder, Multimodal
0:00 Introduction: Meet Ben
0:34 How AI changed work at Orion
1:52 Data readiness and the branch transaction count
3:40 Why credit union data was never ready
6:28 Incumbents, fintechs and the Filene pitch room
8:59 From demo to production
11:03 Who owns the integration
12:58 Corelation KeyStone as a partner
14:22 Bringing people along
16:46 Hospitality first, AI second
18:57 Competing with the big banks
21:45 The fintech pressure
24:43 Budgeting AI for 2027
25:51 Bringing fraud and mortgage servicing in-house
28:59 Closing
8 Oct 2026
Under 1% of Credit Unions Could Run an Agent on Their Data
Ankur Patel interviews Garrett Jorewicz, who leads the Innovation and Enterprise Solutions team at Credit Union 1 (CU1).
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Credit Union 1 grew from $1.3 billion to $2.6 billion in assets through eight to ten mergers a year and doubled its members without adding a single person to its contact center. Garrett's argument is that this was the easy part: he puts the share of credit unions that could run an AI agent against all their data at under 1%, CU1 included, and says getting there means freezing projects to fix the data layer first.
Guest: Garrett Jorewicz, Innovation and Enterprise Solutions, Credit Union 1 (CU1)
Host: Ankur Patel, CEO & Founder, Multimodal
0:00 Introduction: Meet Garrett
0:21 Under 1% of credit unions
0:48 Why the data still isn't in order
3:37 Voluntary open heart surgery
5:41 Contact center as the entry point
6:59 Eight to ten mergers a year
13:08 Four AI vendors, four knowledge bases
15:31 The contact center RFP
17:04 The data cockpit
19:04 Sorting through vendor noise
23:22 Who pays for AI
27:44 Do I need to replace that person
29:11 Same vendors, same tools
34:05 Friction drives behavior
37:03 Twelve seconds or eleven minutes on hold
38:55 Credit unions in ten years
41:06 What credit unions should stop doing
43:42 Closing
23 Sept 2026
What a $4.6B Credit Union's Growth Officer Actually Worries About
Ankur Patel interviews Whitney Anderson, Leadership Strategist and founder of Anderson Growth Advisors.
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Whitney advised credit unions before taking the chief growth officer role at Sunward Credit Union, which runs $4.6 billion in assets and more than 170,000 members out of Albuquerque, New Mexico. After seats as an operator, a sitting CEO, and an outside consultant, Whitney's read is that what blocks AI in credit unions isn't the technology but fear, and that the goal was never to be first to market, just a very close second.
Guest: Whitney Anderson, Leadership Strategist and founder of Anderson Growth Advisors
Host: Ankur Patel, CEO & Founder, Multimodal
Whitney's memoir, She Walked Anyway: The Story of a Woman Who Refused to Stay Down: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1636988776
Her consulting practice, Anderson Growth Advisors: https://andersongrowthadvisors.com
0:00 Introduction: Meet Whitney
0:41 The career arc
4:13 Walking again, the book, and Anderson Growth Advisors
5:01 What adversity changed
6:26 What a consultant sees from the outside
8:06 The challenges facing credit unions
9:26 Is AI just more technology
12:02 Drawing the line on member-facing AI
15:13 Moving the AI skeptics
16:50 Fear, not technology
18:32 Can small credit unions keep up
20:07 The leader credit unions aren't hiring yet
22:16 What the leading credit unions do differently
24:21 Where to find She Walked Anyway
25:24 Closing
Who has been a guest on Pioneers by Multimodal
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Jimmy Iliohan
Sam Nasser
Bhavesh Dayalji
David Mocklow
Andrew McKishnie
Reach and audience
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YouTube views
71,001
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
1 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
2 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 37 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
33
Social presence
0
YouTube
76
Engagement
27
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