About Us

Why CU Difference?

CU Difference is the brainchild of Lois Kitsch and Mark Lynch. Their passion for credit unions and the difference they can make in the lives of people around the world led them to establish cu.difference as a way to help credit unions and organizations that support credit unions to use the credit union difference to improve peoples’ lives.

Mark and Lois first started working together in 2007 on the National Credit Union Foundation’s REAL Solutions Program. Lois was the Program Director and Mark was a Field Coach. The REAL Solutions program helped credit unions develop strategies to better serve their underserved members and communities. In 2011, Lois became responsible for overseeing the Foundation’s Credit Union Development Education program. This immersion program focusses on the credit union difference and trains credit union staff to understand the power of the social mission of credit unions and the importance of achieving the appropriate balance between the business and social mission. Mark worked with Lois on the CUDE program as a facilitator, mentor, and presenter.

So when they decided to “retire” from the Foundation, they wanted to use their more than 80 years combined experience to help credit unions and credit union organizations develop a better understanding of the power of the credit union difference and how to use it to serve and attract members.

Expanding the Team

In March 2020, Lois and Mark expanded their team to include Angela Prestil. Lois and Angela first met in 2003 when Lois was the mentor for Angela’s team at the Credit Union Development Educator program. At the time, Lois was working with the World Council of Credit Unions helping to start credit unions in Afghanistan. Her experiences both inspired and energized Angela, giving her a desire to support the credit union movement at even deeper levels. Angela took her newly ignited passion to credit union leaders, managers, and staff throughout the country through webinars and face-to-face programs such as CUNA Management School and CUNA Experience Learning Live. Angela and Mark first met when she mentored her first group of incoming CUDEs in 2008 where Lois was co-facilitating and Mark was capturing memories. She went on to mentor 4 more teams as well as volunteering for each classes of CUDEs as often as possible and she shows no signs of stopping. Whether she’s teaching credit unions about elevating service, sales and coaching levels by incorporating the credit union difference or facilitating breakout sessions and workshops, Angela is excited to put her 35 years of experience to work with the legendary Lois and Mark.

Our Core Beliefs

They believe that what makes credit unions different should not be the best kept secret, nor should it be just something that is used behind the scenes to motivate credit union leaders. CU Difference believes it is a very powerful tool to inspire everyone in credit unions to do a better job of helping members achieve financial stability, while at the same time growing credit union membership and enhancing the financial viability of credit unions.

Angela Prestil is thrilled to be joining the amazing team at CU Difference with industry leaders Lois Kitsch and Mark Lynch. Described as passionate, engaging and collaborative with a wonderful sense of humor, Angela selflessly and tirelessly serves her constituents. With more than 35 years in business development, leadership, sales coaching, and staff development, she uses her creative energy and solutions-focused approach to develop and deliver programs and products that best serve client needs.

Angela is a big picture thinker, clear communicator and natural problem solver with the innate ability to connect people, processes and technology in ways that drive member growth and optimize future success. During her 20-year career at Credit Union National Association, she partnered with credit unions, CUNA Councils and credit union leagues around the country to deliver high-quality, impactful sessions. Angela is an active Credit Union Development Educator, building on the credit union philosophy of “People Helping People.”

Professional Background

Known for her no-nonsense approach to critical business issues and her ability to cut to the chase, Angela’s clients seek her deep wisdom and ability to help them zero in on their goals. As a former vice president and director at Credit Union National Association, Angela is highly valued and respected for her innovative service and sales solutions, leadership, coaching, staff training & development and culture & talent assessments.

For American credit unions, which operate in one of the world’s most competitive, and metrics-driven industries, Lois Kitsch is the cooperative conscience. With 35 plus years of credit union leadership, she inspires credit union leaders to live the values of the credit union movement to best optimize our cooperative structure to create and enhance business opportunities.  For many years she served as the national program director of the National Credit Union Foundation’s Development Education program, which helps credit union leaders experience a transformational learning experience and maintain cooperative principles as the foundation of their cooperative business model. Beyond her years working for the Foundation, Lois is the Co-Founder of CU Difference aimed to work directly with credit union teams to heighten their awareness and passion for credit unions.

Lois has worked with credit union leaders from six continents to help their movement leaders maximize the relationship between the credit union and its members.  She motivates people to change the way they operate their businesses and think about serving marginal markets. Lois is a natural facilitator, mentor and consensus builder, a well-known public speaker and a successful program leader.

Lois has received many national and international awards including the Athena Award from the World Council of Credit Unions and the Wegner Award from the National Credit Union Foundation.

Mark Lynch is the co-founder of CU Difference, an independent consulting company formed in 2018 with the mission of helping credit unions identify ways in which “the credit union difference” can be used to better serve their members, communities, and overall business prosperity.

Mark has been a credit union member for 42 years and was a credit union board director for 22 years. Prior to moving to the US from Australia, Mark was the Deputy Chairman of the Australian National Credit Union, then Australia’s largest credit union and the Volunteer & Resources Manager with the Australian Credit Union Foundation. Mark also served on the boards of two other cooperatives and the academic council of a business college.

Since moving to the US 13 years ago, he has delivered more than 600 presentations to credit union conferences in 49 states, predominantly on issues relating to growth strategies, optimizing the credit union difference, serving the underserved, and the importance of retaining the credit union tax status. His passion for cooperatives and the credit union movement launched him into working with credit union organizations. For 8 years, Mark worked as a Field Coach with the National Credit Union Foundation’s REAL Solutions Program to help credit unions develop programs and services aimed at low wealth households, as well as the non-prime auto lending pilot, and experiential learning programs. The REAL Solutions program has since retired, but many of its products and services are still helping members today.

Prior to co-founding CU Difference, Mark was the Senior Program Manager with the Foundation. In his work with the Foundation, he focused on teaching credit union staff through the Enhanced FiCEP Program, created the interactive Retirement Fair for credit unions, spearheaded two pilot programs designed to help credit unions provide auto loans to members with low credit scores, and was heavily involved in the Credit Union Development Education (CUDE) Program.