In this episode, host Sharon DeKoning welcomes Jeff Mulligan, the COO of Astec Safety and a managing partner at AMI Group Astec Leadership Development, to share his extensive leadership journey on It’s Time for Success. Jeff played a key role in founding the Bank of Alberta and was instrumental in launching the Interac network early in his career. He talks with Sharon about how his later transformation into leadership roles in credit unions helped develop his philosophy, which highlights strategic focus, execution excellence, and fostering strong team dynamics.
Jeff stressed the importance of resilience, adaptability, and creating an environment where employees feel valued and empowered. There are five core human needs that leaders must address, according to Jeff: security, inclusion, control, fairness, and competence. He and Sharon discussed how he advocates for assembling teams of experts and fostering collaboration. Jeff believes leadership can be learned through experience and mentorship, and encourages emerging leaders to be bold, take risks, and embrace challenges.
About Jeff Mulligan
Jeff Mulligan is the Chief Operating Officer at ASTEC SAFETY Inc. and a managing partner at AMI Group/ASTEC Leadership Development, a management consulting firm specializing in leadership coaching, strategic planning, project management and internal team communications. Jeff is known for inspiring keynote presentations and workshops in the area of leadership and transformational Change.
Jeff has 47 years of progressive business leadership experience. 16 years as an independent business owner and working in management consulting, 11 Years as President & CEO of Commonwealth CU, and 20 years of operational banking and IT management at UNISYS, Credit Union Central, Bank of Alberta (Canadian Western Bank) and CIBC.
Resources discussed in this episode:
- Change Leader Roadmap at BeingFirst.com
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Contact Sharon DeKoning | It’s Time Promotions:
- Website: itpromo.ca
- LinkedIn: Sharon DeKoning
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- Google: It’s Time Promotions
Contact Jeff Mulligan:
- Website: AstecSafety.com
- LinkedIn
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Transcript
Sharon DeKoning: [00:00:16] Thank you everyone for joining us today on the It’s Time for Success: The Business Insights podcast. On today’s episode, we are going to be discussing practical leadership and how that builds strong teams and a healthy culture. With us today is Jeff Mulligan. Jeff is the COO of Astec Safety and a managing partner of AMI Group Astec Leadership Development, which is a management consultant firm that specializes in leadership coaching, strategic planning, project management and internal team communications. I am personally stoked for this opportunity to speak with Jeff. As an entrepreneur, I want only the best for my team and I know it starts with me. Welcome Jeff, and thank you for taking the time to meet with me today.
Jeff Mulligan: [00:01:00] It’s great to be here. I wore my logo shirt from It’s Time in honor of this event. I’m happy to be here. At this point in our careers, and my career specifically, the biggest thing I can do is give back. I’ve had some very good fortune, I’ve been able to experience things that many won’t get to experience, and what I have left to do is pass it on. A responsibility.
Sharon DeKoning: [00:01:24] Thank you for sharing. We can always learn. Tell us a little bit about your leadership history over the years. Just before we started recording, you gave me a little bit of a low down, but let’s share some tips with our listeners.
Jeff Mulligan: [00:01:35] 1977, I graduated and went off to work, and I started with the Bank of Commerce. I had a really good career with the Bank of Commerce, was recruited by a company called Bank of Alberta, which went on to become Canadian Western Bank, which was just now announced, a merger, the National Bank of Canada. We started a Schedule A bank in 1984 in Edmonton. I was recruited by them to start a bank from scratch. If you start a bank, a Schedule A bank, from scratch, you learn an awful lot of lessons in a short period of time. I was responsible for all of the automation, all the systems, all the clearing, all the financial settlement. We started from scratch in a hotel room at the Mayfield Inn, had street level branches fanned out across Canada and were a full service.
Jeff Mulligan: [00:02:27] I moved to Lloydminster to become the number two guy at Border Credit Union in 1995. I was going to come for two years and then move on and be a CEO of a large credit union somewhere. As luck would have it, I became the CEO here the next year. Took Border Credit Union, then we did mergers to create Commonwealth Credit Union across northern Alberta, and then we did the final merger to create Service Credit Union. I moved to Edmonton for a year after that, and after that I retired and became the mayor in Lloydminster shortly after that for four years. Following that, I retired and this opportunity with Astec came along. It was quite a story, and we may have time for that later or not, we’ll see. As to how we became the owners of Astec, we’ve taken Astec from a company that was financially strapped. Losing about $600,000 a year to where we are today. We had $2.4 million in debt, they were losing money when we took over. The company had a good reputation, a good brand, though. We’ve taken that and we’ve parlayed that into pretty big time financial success. In fact, our year end’s February 28th and we will have a record year for both revenue and profit this year. The company has no debt, and we haven’t used our line of credit in five years, so it’s a pretty big success story.
Sharon DeKoning: [00:03:58] That is a huge success. Not only for Astec but for the credit union that you grew, what are the three main credentials that you need to reach that success?
Jeff Mulligan: [00:04:06] For me it was staying very focused on strategy and not getting knocked off your strategy. I used to see a lot of people that would say, been there, done that. You bring up an idea or you bring up a strategy and some smart ass in the back of the room would say, we’ve been there, done that. My question is, every time somebody says that, have you been there and done it well, or have you been there and didn’t execute properly? Was the idea bad or was the execution bad? I think it’s really important to always stop when people want to quickly cast off an idea that seems fundamentally sound because they couldn’t execute. The key is making sure that you build organizations that are high on execution. Absolutely ask yourself the question, have you really been there and done that, or have you been there and done it badly?
Sharon DeKoning: [00:05:10] So you come up with a plan, you come up with an idea. How do you execute? You can’t do it on your own.
Jeff Mulligan: [00:05:16] No, absolutely not. The key in leadership is always, can you put a group together that …
