When David M. Hilton, PhD. founded D. Hilton Associates in 1985, he had a special mission in mind-to help credit unions meet the challenges of the rapidly changing financial services marketplace. A former credit union CEO, David valued the fresh approach consultants could bring to a project.

David assembled a team of seasoned financial services consultants. Over time, he established in-house teams of top-notch human resource, organizational development, marketing, data processing and research professionals. To date, D. Hilton Associates has provided consulting services to nearly 1,400 credit unions nationwide, with assets ranging from $30 million to more than $2 billion.

D. Hilton Associates offers its clients a wide variety of services, each with an insider's perspective. Acting as independent advisors, D. Hilton Associates professionals deliver unsurpassed service tailored to your specific needs. Our goal is to develop a long-term relationship with your credit union, just as we have with many others. No other group or individual offers the depth of knowledge or breadth of services offered by D. Hilton Associates.

D. Hilton Associates has grown from a group of professionals with experience in a number of business practices into a thriving full-service consultancy to the credit union industry. Our full-time staff comes from a wide range of backgrounds. Many have senior management experience in financial institutions, but over the years, we've gathered executives from the far-flung worlds of Madison Avenue, The Big Three in Detroit, Silicon Valley and many in between.

Services

Marketing & Advertising
Understanding your business is our business. The award-winning D. Hilton Associates' Marketing and Advertising Group combines market research, strategic thinking, integrated marketing and powerful creative work to help you achieve all your business goals. And our expertise is in the credit union industry.

The DHA Marketing and Advertising Practice has completed literally thousands of projects. It has helped client-partners increase overall membership numbers, and member satisfaction and loyalty; effectively promote products and services; create new credit union brands and most importantly, improve the bottom line—all the direct result of our strategic marketing practices.

Market Research
Strategic Market Research enables credit unions to develop superior relationships with their members. The D. Hilton Associates Market Research Practice employs sophisticated research and analysis techniques to help clients develop the most effective strategies to attain their business goals. From the proprietary Member Migration Research Product Suite (a predictive profitability model that measures member satisfaction, loyalty and lifetime value) to Brand Surveys and Analysis, D. Hilton Associates develops customized research tools that address each client's unique information requirement. The end result is much more than raw data, it is meaningful interpretation that can be readily converted to specific action plans.

Retention & Retirement
D. Hilton Associates Inc. has a depth of expertise in custom compensation planning that is unmatched in the credit union industry. This advantage provides us, as industry leaders, with the insight and expertise required to develop and design effective, custom executive retention and retirement packages. Since 1985 we have completed over 850 retained executive searches for CEO's and senior managers in the credit union industry. Our custom compensation and benchmarking practice has grown dramatically over the past seven years to over 500 credit unions annually.

Industry estimates project that by the year 2006, 30% of current credit union CEO's will retire, as will an additional 22% of senior managers. Therefore, succession planning and retention have never been more critical. Using a custom design approach, we can guide your credit union to the right benefit package for attracting and retaining key executives.

Management Recruiting
Today's changing and increasingly complex financial services marketplace requires the best and brightest talent to ensure future success. That's why credit unions of all sizes, from $20 million to $5 billion, have utilized D. Hilton Associates' time-tested recruiting methodologies. From full-service recruiting to pioneering employment strategies, D. Hilton Associates' dedicated, full-time recruiters provide unparalleled commitment, experience and care in the recruitment of your organization's most critical employees.

Human Resources
A credit union's success depends upon its employees. They create solutions, prevent problems, and are responsible for delivering the highest level of member satisfaction through innovative services and products. The compensation program can either facilitate or derail efforts to create a successful sales and service culture.

The D. Hilton Associates Human Resource Group assists its client-partners in the creation and implementation of multiple pay programs and incentive plans that allow them to attract and retain the right people, performance reviews that measure competencies, and employee surveys that examine all aspects of the employee experience. Through these tools and others, the DHA Human Resource Group works to help partner-clients maximize human capital.

Mergers
Spreading expense over a larger number of members helps make today’s heightened product and service expectations more affordable. Consequently, many credit unions are combining forces through merger.

The experienced staff at DHA streamlines these projects for credit unions by handling many of their most time-consuming challenges. We’ll conduct the research and prepare clear, concise documentation to answer questions for the regulator. We also provide support for communicating relevant information to the various stakeholders involved, and serve as a neutral third party to assist in the negotiation of difficult merger issues.

Awards
DHA Wins Marketing and Advertising Awards!

The D. Hilton Advertising Group received seven awards in the Lone Star Awards competition sponsored by the Texas Credit Union League. The D. Hilton Advertising Group also recently won three awards in the Washington Credit Union League Spectrum Awards.