Cultivating Empowerment with Verena Rasmussen

Verena’s journey to FinWise Bank.

Prior to joining FinWise, Verena had an illustrious career in the sports industry that spanned over two decades. She held various roles, including serving as the Chief of Protocol and leading International Client Services for the 2002 Olympics in Utah, working in operations, sponsor services, and activation areas for the Utah Jazz, and serving as the Vice President of Sponsor Services for Real Salt Lake. As such, Verena is one of few women in Utah involved with the highest level of sport that has distinguished the Beehive State. In 2022, Verena joined FinWise Bank as the Vice President of Customer Experience. Her impressive journey to FinWise is a testament to her outstanding leadership skills and unwavering dedication to excellence in customer service.

Encouraging individual empowerment.

Verena believes that many of our loyal customers at our single branch are drawn there because of the customer service offered by her team, the personal touch, and genuine care for our customers and their needs. Quanette Shinsel is like family to many of them and has been with the Utah Community Bank, renamed FinWise Bank, for over 23 years. FinWise was nominated recently as a top performing Community Bank in large part due to our branch employees.

The other arm of Customer Experience is Customer and Operations Support. The great employees on our Ops Support Team are the first voice for many of our callers and pride themselves in providing excellent customer experience. Mary Ruth McAvoy leads them with an impressive background in customer service management.

Recently added to Customer Experience is a new hire, Hayden Cundick, who focuses on Quality Assurance to help shore up our first line of testing, ensuring our procedures are sound and following our policies.

Verena is grateful to be working with such an incredible team that has vast experience and embodies a people-first attitude. She hopes to continue learning from them.

Leading with family values in the community.

Verena considers her children to be her biggest contribution to the community. She loves seeing her children pursue their own passions, which include art skills, technology, marketing, and entrepreneurship to make a difference in their communities. Verena and her husband have instilled these values in their children and created an environment at home that fosters these passions. She is also involved in her Church and enjoys getting involved in the community. Verena considers work a blessing in her life, but her greatest blessing is her family. She cherishes spending time with her husband, daughter, four sons, their wives, and four (soon to be five) granddaughters.

What is your best advice for women who want to be in leadership roles?

“Be Fearless. Speak up and be known.”

She advises women not to let their fear get in the way of opportunities. Too often, women think they need to have all the answers, insights, knowledge, and skills before they can be the “right” fit for an opportunity. Verena believes women should be bolder throughout their career, just as she was with her children, ensuring they had the opportunities they worked hard for.

Celebrate Women’s History Month with an activity:

Choose from some of Verena’s favorites:

1. 1. Take a daughter, niece, or friend to a place they love and encourage them to dream big.
   2. Volunteer with Junior Achievement (JA), taking a keen interest in the young girls on your business team. Encourage them to raise their hand to be president of your JA company for the day. Help them see the possibilities.
   3. Watch The Past is Not Predictive by Trevor, featured on Tom Bilyeu (Impact Theory) as it is a powerful story: