Luis Pastor.

CEO, LATINO COMMUNITY CREDIT UNION, DURHAM

When Luis Pastor began volunteer work with Latino Community Credit Union in September 2000, it was meant to be a temporary gig. He and his wife had moved to Durham from Spain so she could get an MBA at Duke. He heard about the credit union, then open less than three months, and liked its mission. It was launched after a spate of robberies of Hispanic immigrants, who were targeted because many kept their savings at home. A veteran banker with an MBA from Instituto de Empresa in Madrid and five years' experience as the financial director of a pet-food company, Pastor quickly moved from helping people open accounts to managing the credit union's sole office. Less than seven months after he started as a volunteer, he became CEO of LCCU, which now has branches in Durham, Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro and Fayetteville, assets totaling $64 million, nearly 70 employees and more than 50,000 members. For 80% of them, English is a second language, and more than 75% never had bank accounts before. "Balancing a checkbook is not intuitive. It's something someone teaches you how to do," Pastor, 40, says. "From 7 and 10 years old, these people were working in the fields." The credit union is seeing more competition from giants such as Bank of America, which Pastor finds encouraging. The more banks and lenders working with immigrants the better, he says. "I wish them good luck."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]