Shelley Besse

As president of Envision Financial, a division of First West Credit Union, Shelley Besse provides leadership to all of the credit union's lines of business in the Envision region. Shelley’s a highly respected leader with extensive knowledge and experience in financial services. Creating excellence in the member experience has been a primary driver throughout her longstanding career with the credit union. In her role as president, she remains thoroughly committed to seeing things from the perspectives of our members, local businesses and communities.

Since joining Envision Financial in 1984, Shelley Besse has held a number of senior roles related to branch operations including branch manager; manager, financial planning; assistant vice-president, branch operations; vice-president, sales and service and vice-president, risk management and operations. She was appointed to lead First West Credit Union’s transition efforts in 2009 and successfully mapped out a three-year plan to bring together several Valley First and Envision operations under First West Credit Union and evolve the organization’s new operating model. This was followed by over a year serving as First West’s senior vice-president of operations, sales and member experience where she focused on providing staff with the best possible operations support and for developing and implementing an enterprise-wide continuous improvement strategy known as LEAN. In January 2012, Shelley was appointed president of the Envision Financial, a division of First West Credit Union.

Among her many credentials, Shelley holds an MBA from Royal Roads University, a certificate in financial planning, and she is also a graduate of the Stanford Executive Program, specializing in strategy and organizational design. Most recently Shelley received an Operational Risk Management professional designation from the International Council for Operational Risk Management, as well as the role of director for the Surrey Board of Trade.