5Q: Tamara Vrooman, friend of the Pope, Vancity CEO

It’s safe to say Tamara Vrooman has lunched with dozens of bankers and powerful world leaders in a career that’s spanned the upper echelons of government, where she served as British Columbia’s deputy minister of finance, to her current role as CEO of Vancity credit union, based in Vancouver.

Even so, a recent invitation by the Vatican to break bread with Pope Francis himself proved a memorable first.

“We get many invitations in our professional lives but this one was definitely unique,” said Vrooman in an interview with Yahoo Canada Finance.

The meeting took place during a two-day summit, held July 11/12. Vrooman was among about 60 international academics, corporate leaders and financial experts, including Canadian Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, gathered to advise the pontiff on practical ways to build a more inclusive global economy.

Vrooman shared more about details about the meeting, and what she came away with in the following Q&A:

How did it come about that you were among those invited to the Vatican to take part in this summit?

I think it came to us at Vancity for two reasons. We have a strong connection, by virtue of the fact we are a financial cooperative, with our cooperative colleagues and Italy in particular. Dr. Stefano Zamagni, professor of international economics at the University in Bologna, is an advisor to the Vatican on a variety of economic issues. I am sure he had a hand in creating the invitee list from around the world. (Zamagni was a distinguished speaker at the University of Victoria in 2010).

Can you talk about some specific projects that Vancity is engaged in that address this notion of global inequality, but perhaps more on a regional basis?

We were the first private-sector organization in Canada to pay a living wage, not only to our staff, but also to all of the contractors. That really created quite a difference. We have had tremendous response from peers curious to how they might do that, understanding that we have a huge role to play with our purchasing power in creating the society and economy that makes all of us live better together.

We also recently introduced an alternative to our members to pay-day lending or cash stores. Our members who may need short-term financing quickly can get it at a far lower cost. For example, if you needed $300 over two-week period to get through to the next pay day. At the current rate pay-day lenders charge, if you paid it back in full, at the end of two weeks it would cost you $69. For our members, it costs $2.29. More importantly, we do it in a way that allows our members to have access to financial literacy and counselling and advice so if they are getting in over their heads, they can stop that cycle of debt and also do it in a way that allows them to build their credit rating so when they do go to get credit the next time they have a more positive credit experience, which allows them to get lower cost and more stable financing.

Do you have concrete examples of people who have been able to get out the cycle of poverty or out of financial trouble through this particular program?

It’s a very new program. We are definitely seeing that on a short-term basis, our members are being given the confidence to be able to participate, but some of these problems are long-standing and chronic and we are prepared to work with them over the long-term as well, and we are quite patient.

We do have members from the South Asia community who will tell us that 20 years ago or 30 years ago, when they first came to Canada, there weren’t a lot of examples of people in financial institutions where they could do business in their own language, Punjabi, or where they would see people wearing a turban behind the counter with whom they feel they might be able to build a connection and ask questions about how the banking system works in Canada. Those members are now some of our wealthiest and most successful members, not only in credit unions but in our communities. We found again that by being open to more people in our community, we do better collectively.

That is an interesting point about financial inequality. You are saying that it may be someone who has money or the potential to make it, but is held back by language or culture?

Absolutely. And inequality, from an economic point of view, is inefficient by virtually every measure. I think why the Vatican was so interested in this is, as they look around the world they see the global economic system has certainly produced many benefits and has increased the well being and health of many, many people. But, still, poverty continues to grow. The system is not performing at its optimum because it is still leaving a lot of people out. Whether we see it through the lens of microfinance in developing world or as some of the barriers to participation that I just talked about here in Canada, all of those things limit economic participation.

What did the pope say about the current global economic system?

What he said to us, specifically, when he addressed us was that when a system doesn`t have at its core the well being and the interest of its people and the community, and when the interest instead gets moved to the outside of the system, then whatever moves to the inside, the people on the outside become slaves and servants to it. That is backwards, he said. What we need to be focussing on are systems and institutions and ways of working that put people and their well being, in the true sense, including the well being of the planet which sustains us, at the heart of system and focus once again on those things and design institutions that create that as an outcome. That is what is going to build a more sustainable economy and also society.

It sounds pretty inspiring. How did you feel coming away from this experience?

I came away very humbled, for sure. The invitation and the opportunity to talk about these kinds of ideas with world leaders who really have the potential to make some change in the world is a pretty humbling experience. But I also came away with a sense of renewed energy and confidence for the work we are doing here in Vancouver and that it is a model and people are interested in it. It’s not perfect and we are learning, for sure, every day, it definitely has the potential to do more.

Did you have multiple opportunities to meet with the Pope or was it a single session?

The meetings themselves were at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and they were convened by Cardinal Peter Turkson. There were about 60 participants in total, including the academic advisors who were advising the council and the Vatican. Most of our deliberations took place there. The meeting was a day and a half, and then (on the second day), we took a two-hour break and had an opportunity to meet individually -- think receiving line not individual in-depth interviews -- with Pope Francis. I had an opportunity to meet him and to thank him for convening the meeting, to talk very briefly about where I was from and the work that we do and he thanked me for that and thanked me for coming. We then went to a larger room for lunch where we dined with him and had informal discussions and he spent a few minutes at the end addressing us.

Pope Francis is known, at least in the media, for living modestly and he has often expressed his interest in addressing poverty and inequality. Did you get a sense that is genuinely who he is when you meet him in person?

Absolutely. Not only just in the remarks that he made, which were very direct, simply but powerfully put and sincere, but also when you meet the man himself. When he came in to meet us maybe there were security people around, but they weren’t visible in that way, and he was very humble, attentive, sincere and genuine. What you see of him internationally in the media, was very much consistent with the experience I had.

When you look at the growing disparity between rich and poor, not only in Canada, but across the world, it almost seems unstoppable. Is this too big a force to change?

It is, on the one hand, a very profound problem and on the other hand it seems almost overwhelming and so promotes almost an inertia because people don`t know where to start. But some of the things we talked about were quite practical. Coming out of the meetings, there was a list of things where we think we need to start: from greater transparency in tax policy … to really practical things like increasing opportunities for financial literacy and financial education in schools, in private organizations and in faith-based organizations as a way to promote not only economic opportunity but also political democracy and social democracy. It gives you the opportunity to make more informed choices that are so key to the functioning of individuals in society. None are easy, but I think some of them are quite practical and they are things that organizations, whether you are a small start-up entrepreneur or a large multi-national, can start to think about in terms of the way we run our own organizations.

I think I know the answer to this judging on your own career path and the kind of work credit unions do, but let me ask it anyway: How optimistic are you that we, as a society, are committed to addressing economic inequality?

To be totally honest, I don`t know if we will be able to get it back to where it should be, but I do know that if we don`t try we certainly never will. I am quite committed and interested and personally very motivated to understand ways to do that and to work collectively because I fundamentally believe that the secret to economic growth is really no secret: If you have more people participating in the economy, the economy will do better. We have trends that are doing the opposite and excluding people from participating in the economy and that can never go well in the long-term.

Now that you’ve met the pope, where does your career go from here?

That was definitely a one-off and a highlight.