Header widget area left
Header widget area right

Testimonials

Read what our clients have to say about working with Ultreia.

“Ultreia adapts to our situation and needs. Derek’s experience with financial services and having understanding of our business is helpful – this does not have to be the case for effective Lean coaching, but for us has been very beneficial. With Ultreia, we’re getting a team that’s experienced and well-versed in Lean but doesn’t feel like a big consultant machine that takes over.”

Kathy Conway
Chief Executive Officer
Interior Savings Credit Union

 

“One of Ultreia’s measures of success is to work themselves out of a job. At the front end of the partnership they are teaching, coaching and training and we are the student. Their goal is to build our Lean competency and confidence. Over time, we become the teacher and success is when they are needed less and less. We fully recommend Ultreia as the partner that can help you on your Lean journey.”

Barry Delaney
Chief Executive Officer
Salmon Arm Savings and Credit Union

 

“An example of how we have advanced through Lean is in commercial credit adjudication where we realized savings of 3,000 hours. While examples like this sound and are great, that’s not the big value for me at ISCU. It’s creating the environment for that to happen that’s really important. It’s that environment Ultreia’s actually helping us create.”

Dave Cronquist
SVP Strategy & Organizational Efficiency
Interior Savings Credit Union

 

“One reason we partnered with Ultreia is their unique measured approach. Other Lean consulting groups seemed more interested in fitting us into their box. Only Ultreia talked about a readiness assessment. Derek wanted to learn about our organization – both to understand our current state and strategic goals and to ensure a good mutual fit. He was interviewing us at the same time and is not interested in grabbing anyone that comes along – that separated Ultreia from others.”

Ken Hawrys
VP Operations & Strategy
Salmon Arm Savings and Credit Union

 

“What I find different with Ultreia is the partnership. Ultreia takes time to understand the current state culture of the organization and adapts their approach to help get over identified obstacles. What I hear from other organizations (that don’t partner with Ultreia) is that they are given the Lean language and the training, but invest little in establishing advance understanding of the organization’s culture; and then they’re sort of thrown into working mainly on their own. It’s the partnership that we’ve developed with Ultreia, not just the knowledge they give us, that helps us transform the organization. It’s not a once and done. Ultreia provides strong support as we go through the challenges of cultural change. Theirs is a phased approach and they provide ongoing understanding of where we’re at and how far we’ve got to go. Ultreia’s is long-term commitment and partnership and that’s important to us.

Mike Miller
Senior Manager, Business Process Improvement
Interior Savings Credit Union

 

“We’ve seen great benefits through Ultreia’s approach to Lean for Service. When we first started out, there was a lot of negativity. Many felt we’d done this kind of thing before – it came, it did not work and it went away. There was also little collaboration between departments; we were a collection of silos. We’re now entering our third year and have seen positive outcomes in waste elimination, cost control and improved customer experience and much more cultural alignment – that is a big one. Today we have a lot of cross position and cross department collaboration – that absolutely did not exist before. Ultreia has given people the tools and the ways to help them erode those silos. Process refinements are making it easy for staff, better for our members. A byproduct is cost control (we’ve even learned much more about what the cost of our processes are).”

Dan Turner
Manager of Business Development
Interior Savings Credit Union

 

“Derek’s expertise and passion during the introduction of Lean continuous improvement was key to the successful adoption of this new approach. Qualities that make Derek successful are his integrity, passion, and willingness to give of his time and effort to help others succeed. He is truly a servant leader. I highly recommend Derek to any organization looking for the support of an expert leader in the area of Lean continuous improvement.”

Bev Brown
Partner
WestView Executive Search
(Former President, Envision Financial Credit Union)

 

“Derek Nakamoto is a great business leader and motivator. I would highly recommend him. He is passionate, excellent with teams, a mentor, and has an inclusive management style, which motivates all around him. Derek has an extensive amount of knowledge around process improvement, team leadership, and change management. He executed a Lean for Service strategy for all of First West, and it is now part of our corporate culture in all aspects of the business. Derek is also a strategic leader who is able to create a plan and execute it while creating buy-in from the entire organization due to his excellent communication skills and professional ethics. I enjoyed every aspect of interacting with Derek and know others will as well.”

Douglas Ebner
E-Business, Innovator
VP, First Ontario Credit Union

 

“Derek is exceptionally dedicated to process excellence and effective execution of change. Few people are as passionate about creating efficiencies and even fewer are capable of working as true collaborative partner in change management.”

Kasia Parent
Director, Operations Global Communications
Scotiabank

 

Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you deploy Lean continuous improvement in your company.

Get In Touch