Orion S.

About Orion S.

I build digital banking for the people who need it most.Military families navigating deployments. Binational households moving money across borders. Gig economy hustlers piecing together income from multiple streams. Spanish-speaking members who’ve been underserved by financial technology built for someone else. These are the members I think about when I make product decisions, and they’re the reason digital banking at a community institution is one of the most meaningful places to do this work.This work is personal. I grew up in a household that looked a lot like the members we serve. Underbanked, navigating a financial system that wasn’t built for us. That experience never left me. It sits behind every product decision I make.I’m currently VP of Digital Channels & Strategy at Mission Federal Credit Union, a $7B institution serving members in San Diego. In 2025, my team completed a full conversion of our digital banking platform for our entire membership base without service disruption or re-enrollment. We did it with a team of six.Before Mission Fed, I led digital product teams at Union Bank for nearly 6 years, building omnichannel journeys at scale, and served as Product Lead at First Dollar, a fintech building API-first banking-as-a-service for health benefits. I’ve operated at the intersection of community banking, payments, regulatory compliance, and consumer products throughout my career.My philosophy: digital banking should reduce the distance between people and financial security. Not maximize engagement metrics. Not drive fee income. Reduce the distance.Outside work, I mentor veterans transitioning to civilian careers, a natural extension of the belief that the right support at the right moment changes trajectories.

Experience

1. VP, Digital Channels & Strategy

   Mission Fed Credit Union

   Feb 2023 — Present

   Continually refine strategic roadmap to enhance digital product offerings, including account opening, digital banking, and self-directed investing. • Lead system upgrades for critical customer-facing systems, improving efficiency, sales funnels, and customer outreach. • Manage the product portfolio and go-to-market strategy, reducing release cycles through cross-functional coordination. • Promote a customer-centric approach by integrating customer feedback into product development using journey mapping and direct outreach. • Emphasize data-driven decision-making, partnering with the Enterprise Data team to deliver value-added features. • Implement automated testing to improve feature iteration and ROI while reducing time-to-market. • Establish OKRs and KPIs for strategic alignment and data-driven prioritization. • Improve critical system reliability through monitoring, alerting, and automated recovery improvements. • Spearheaded critical system stability initiatives that transformed our mobile banking experience, achieving a 4.9/5 App Store rating• Championed digital transformation initiatives resulting in 78% digital banking adoption and 64% mobile engagement across our user base• Pioneered innovative Digital Member ID Card solution that modernized in-branch verification, significantly reducing wait times and enhancing member experience• Optimized peer to peer payment platform security and adoption, achieving 40% transaction growth and 20% increase in adoption while reducing fraud exposure by 61%• Improved member service by implementing AI-powered 24/7 chatbot solutions and integrating Apple/Google Business messaging platforms• Accelerated growth of automated savings program, driving 18% user base expansion and empowering members to build savings through smart transaction round-ups

Education

• Harvard University

  Bachelor's degree

Skills

• Cross-Functional Team Leadership
• Project Management
• Agile Methodologies
• Scrum
• Business Analysis
• Management
• Business Intelligence
• Risk Management
• Business Development
• Vendor Management
• Agile Project Management
• Product Management
• Testing
• Program Management
• Analytics
• Relationship Management
• Systems Analysis
• Software Development
• Analysis
• Resource Management
• Business Strategy
• Product Development
• Data Warehousing
• Business Planning
• Market Research
• New Business Development
• Perl
• User Stories
• Databases
• Portfolio Management
• Conflict Management
• Objective-C
• R
• Php
• Lean Thinking
• Data Science