Former SRM execs leading new vendor management firm for credit unions

Orion Financial in Memphis, Tenn., is looking to disrupt the status quo among vendor management consultants with an effort led by former executives from an established firm.

Mark Mrva, who recently joined Orion from Strategic Resource Management, wrote on LinkedIn that the credit union had formed WonderLab Advisors, a new firm designed to help credit unions assess vendor programs, improve third-party spend, strengthen procurement governance, and build scalable sourcing processes.

Ben Mrva, Orion’s chief operating officer, is WonderLab’s CEO. He previously served as SRM’s chief revenue officer.

The consulting model is straightforward: bring in external expertise, benchmark contracts, identify savings, and charge a fee based on how much you save the client. Credit unions have leaned on it heavily as their vendor environments grew more complex.

What makes WonderLab different isn’t the service menu. Rather, it’s the vantage point from which they’re delivering it.

Mark Mrva described WonderLab as “a natural progression of the leadership and operational mindset that Orion Financial continues to build around governance, collaboration, and thoughtful growth.” That’s the language of an operator who is building something real and is ready to market it.

WonderLab can walk into a meeting with credit union executives with the confidence that their credit union faces the same problems, giving the Mrvas more credibility with prospects. That peer-to-peer dynamic carries weight and is foundational to the cooperative model.