Deboleena Bose, CHRO at CoBank

Show Notes

Intentional Culture at CoBank: CHRO Debulina Bose on Mission-First HR and AI with Empathy

Summary

How do you unify a national, largely exempt workforce while navigating AI and rapid growth?

Debulina Bose, Chief Human Resources Officer at CoBank, shares how a mission-first approach—serving rural America and strengthening food security—drives hiring, development, and culture across 1,400 associates. As a cooperative, CoBank makes long-term people decisions, not quarter-by-quarter tradeoffs.

Debulina details how her team uses Gallup StrengthsFinder to build diverse-by-thinking teams, why empathy, listening, and judgment will differentiate talent in an AI-enabled workplace, and where AI fits today—from HR chat assistants for FAQs to Copilot for tone and productivity. With 40% of employees new in the last three years, she outlines CoBank’s 2026 priority: building an intentional, co-created culture that matches the mission and the moment.

Expect practical ideas for hiring for purpose, applying the “five whys,” and using AI as a thought partner—while keeping humans firmly in the loop.

Timestamps

[00:45] – Guest intro: CoBank’s mission to serve rural America and Debulina’s remit as CHRO

[01:54] – Workforce snapshot: 1,400 associates, HQ in Denver, national footprint, largely exempt

[03:02] – Unifying a distributed culture: hiring and promoting for mission alignment

[04:34] – The cooperative advantage: long-term lens for talent and development

[05:33] – StrengthsFinder in action: diversity of perspectives and team assimilations

[08:03] – AI anxiety to clarity: empathy, listening, and judgment as differentiators

[11:36] – Practical AI: HR knowledge assistant for FAQs; Copilot to refine difficult messages

[17:43] – 2026 focus: “intentional culture” with 40% new hires—engagement over edicts

Takeaways

- Hire for purpose: prioritize mission alignment to unify distributed teams and decisions.

- Anchor people strategy in the long term—especially in a cooperative or stakeholder model.

- Use StrengthsFinder to design teams with diverse thinking styles and run effective assimilations.

- Deploy AI where it scales routine work (FAQ chatbots) and boosts clarity (tone refinement), not where empathy is required.

- Teach human skills that AI can’t replicate: deep listening, judgment, critical thinking, and the “five whys.”

- Co-create culture during periods of heavy hiring—engage employees broadly instead of issuing top-down values.

Sponsor

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What is HR Voices?

HR Voices is a scenario-based podcast for People Leaders who’ve actually had to make the call.

Each episode brings experienced HR and People leaders into realistic, anonymized workplace scenarios—the kind you recognize immediately. Performance issues. Messy conflicts. Investigations that don’t fit neatly into a policy box. Instead of talking about their own companies, guests react to outside cases and walk through how they’d think it through in real time.

There are no right answers here. What you’ll hear is judgment: how seasoned leaders balance risk, fairness, legal reality, and humanity when the stakes are high and the path isn’t obvious.

HR Voices is for HR, People Ops, legal, and leaders who want to hear how other smart humans actually handle employee relations—without confidentiality breaches, hypotheticals that feel fake, or a lecture on “best practices.”

So hello, everybody. Welcome to HR Voices. My name is Rebecca Taylor. I'm here with Debulina Bose, the CHRO of Cobank. Debulina, welcome. Thank you for being here.

Deboleena Bose (00:41)
Thanks, Rebecca. I'm glad to be here and excited to talk to you today.

Rebecca Taylor (00:46)
Yeah, thank you. So I love to kind of start with a first question just to kind of get some context on your perspective and everything that you're going to be speaking with. Can you tell us about your role at Cobank and the people that you support?

Deboleena Bose (00:58)
Yes, thank you. So Cobank, are like a commercial bank. However, we are focused exclusively to help rural America. So we lend to rural America so that we can have food security and really have vibrant rural communities. So I support the business, I lead HR and make sure that we have very talented

bankers and other enabling ⁓ functions to achieve this mission that we have.

Rebecca Taylor (01:35)
That's a great mission. It's something that I think we can all get behind. Food stability is something we can all be passionate about, right?

Deboleena Bose (01:43)
No, mean, that's what is exciting for us because there's it's an intersection of this very great purpose, but they're also very profitable. So it's fun to be able to work in an organization like

Rebecca Taylor (01:54)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's very cool. And so knowing you're working with bankers that are, I imagine, located in many places, can you tell us about sort of the, what does your workforce look like? How many people do you have? How are they located? What's their status?

Deboleena Bose (02:14)
Yeah. So we have about slightly less than 1400 associates. We are headquartered out of Denver and we have multiple locations like Minneapolis and we have regional banking centers all over the country. We are a national bank, which means we only have operations in the US. And most of our team is what we call

know the exempt and salaried exempt. So it's a very white collar.

Rebecca Taylor (02:49)
Yeah, very cool. And so ⁓ when you have so many employees in so many different locations, what are some of the challenges that you face in kind of creating a unified culture when folks are located in so many different spots?

Deboleena Bose (03:02)
Yeah, that's a terrific question because we are all ⁓ figuring out what is that secret sauce, right? How do we come together as one organization, one entity? And we have we are lucky because we have this fabulous mission, right? Observing rural America. I think that in itself helps us create a very singular entity.

And what we do is when we hire people and we promote and develop and retain people, we do that with this lens of, they be passionate about this mission? So we will not hire probably the best in class of someone, but we really hire people who are terrific, but who are really excited about the mission. Because if you don't...

really lift this mission of serving rural America, it's difficult to be able to understand and do that work.

Rebecca Taylor (04:05)
Yeah, yeah. It's always great to talk to sort of a very mission driven and mission oriented company. I think that's we were talking about this a little bit even before we started recording. That's one of the things that I've seen so much at All Voices is it's also just a very mission driven company and it's a different, it's different than working with a group of people that are kind of just there to show up and do their job. It's nice to kind of feel connected to seeing the work that you're doing show up in the real world and ideally have a good influence on the people that you're doing it for.

Deboleena Bose (04:34)
Right. And to add to that, we're also a cooperative and being a cooperative means that, know, unlike a public company or a private company, which are very focused on quarterly earnings or what call it a very short term focus. Part of being a cooperative is, you know, having longer term focus. So those decisions mean that, you know, you're always thinking about

Rebecca Taylor (04:57)
I am.

Deboleena Bose (05:03)
What is the impact in the longer term? So as a professional is very fulfilling, right? Because if you think about, you know, employees, employee development, you always have to take the longer term view. Because we are all human beings, it's not that, you know, you adjust some screws, and then suddenly everything is now to be able to think about, you know, the full self of the person.

Rebecca Taylor (05:17)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Deboleena Bose (05:33)
all of us have some strengths and there are some, all of us have different development needs. So how do we bring people together and acknowledge what our strengths are and then move forwards as a team. So for example, one of the things that we do is we have a long partnership with Gallup and we are strengths finders. And we have used that to look at, you know, the

makeup of the teams because diversity is not just about diversity in terms of race, gender and others. It's also about diversity of perspectives. So when we look at teams, especially when we look at team assimilations, we actually use strengths finders to do that. And that enables us to really then build teams which are focused on longer term customer relationships, longer term solutions, you know.

So that's kind of embedded in our cooperative principle as well.

Rebecca Taylor (06:32)
Yeah, that's so great, especially when it feels like everyone's operating in such a reactive space these days. think, especially over the last two years, just with AI coming into the world, right? It's like, everyone's trying to catch up, everyone's trying to react and just think, you know, what's right in front of me? What do I need to learn? So for someone who's listening to this, what's one tip that you can give that'll help them?

to feel less reactive to what's right in front of them and help them to kind of think with a longer term perspective as they're building programs.

Deboleena Bose (07:06)
Yeah, you know, AI is on everybody's mind, right? Like, you know, you, you can't open even a normal newspaper, right? aside all the books and all a class or anything. Even Pat is talking about AI. And I think it's causing a lot of stress, right? In that people are unsure about the impact. You know, will I have a job? I have a son who's going to start

college and fall. And one of the things we talk about is that what should we study? Because there's so many people, know, in the last two years, graduating classes who haven't gotten jobs. So, so that's how that everybody's thinking about that. Where does productivity help? And where does it impact my employability?

Rebecca Taylor (07:41)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Deboleena Bose (08:03)
And it took me a little bit of time to understand that because when we first discovered AI tools, I was like, wow, this is fabulous. And I remember I was in an all-team meeting of my team, and I was espousing the wonderfulness of AI. And then some of my team members came and said later to me, they're like, we know you're talking about this, but we're worried that our jobs go away.

Rebecca Taylor (08:32)
Mmm, yep.

Deboleena Bose (08:33)
And I'll tell you what I have realized. There are some things which, and this is kind of, it is coming up as a future trend as well. What AI cannot do is AI does not yet have empathy. So there are some very human part of what we do and how we show up, not just in HR, but across, right? As leaders, as employees.

Rebecca Taylor (08:50)
Okay.

It's.

Deboleena Bose (09:01)
that is going to become more more differentiated. Because if you think about what AI is doing, it's giving us all a common platform in tools. So if you're in a workplace, you're using either chat GPT, copilot, Gemini, perplexity, things like that, everybody is using the same. So what's really going to be helpful and differentiated is that are you able to

truly listen to what's happening around you. Right? do customers want? What do your employees want? Do you have the judgment? Do you have the critical thinking? Right? And those things are the ones who are going to become more and more important for us to, you know, really move forward. So I think if I go back a couple of years ago, it was all about coding analysis, things like that.

Rebecca Taylor (09:55)
Yeah.

Deboleena Bose (09:56)
That's going to go away. when I started working almost 30 years ago, what was most important, being able to make a connection, Truly listen to people. Being able to really dig deeper. We used to use this tool called the five whys, right? Like you continue to ask why, why, why, till you get to the core of it. That are going to become more important.

Rebecca Taylor (10:07)
Yeah.

Yeah, things

Yeah, yeah, I could not agree more where it's about the human connection part, the empathy. And it's also, think the thing that makes AI sometimes scary for some people is the it's only as good as the inputs that you give it. So that's kind of where you start to see, you know, there's a there's a huge opportunity in what AI can do. And

I think there are some really good tools that out there that are being built on AI to do a specific job. And I think those are the ones that are the ones to watch because they've kind of figured out the workflows or they figured out the prompts or the intake to then generate a better output that then you as a human can review and look at and then decide what to do with, right? And those are the kind of ways that I think that

HR teams specifically are kind of trying to figure how to use AI is just what are the tools that we already have that have that interaction or, you know, what are some specialty type tools that we can look at that kind of, you know, do those specific things. You know, how are you, how are you using AI now? I mean, what are some of the, like, what's one job that you've enhanced by introducing an AI tool?

Deboleena Bose (11:36)
So one of the things that we are doing is we're using almost like a chatbot, like a knowledge assistant, which is helping our employees to get answers instead of, you know, calling someone else, right? Like, how many days of vacation do I need?

Rebecca Taylor (11:56)
Yep. How many times do you answer that question?

Deboleena Bose (12:01)
So things which are more routine, which is out there somewhere and the data is clean. So we are using that for, we are using an AI solution for that. And then we also use a lot for personal productivity. We have co-pilot and what we've all realized is that if you just give a prompt, that's not gonna generate anything.

Rebecca Taylor (12:16)
Mmm.

Deboleena Bose (12:27)
However, if you're writing a difficult message, if you put your own first message and then you kind of use AI or copilot to say, this is the tone I need, then it gives you some hints and it's just a productivity tool, I think.

Rebecca Taylor (12:47)
Yeah. And I can imagine, maybe I'm thinking about this in a weird way, but I can imagine that having that strengths-finder information too can kind of help when you're trying to cater a message to someone who communicates so much differently than you do. So say, trying, you know, I am this way, I'm trying to talk to someone who's this way, help me hone this message. That's where it can help with the connection points, but you still have to know what you're trying to say. It might just help you say it in a way that's better received.

Deboleena Bose (13:14)
Yeah. Let's see like how you made a connection to what I said earlier with how, you know, we put it forward now. You can do it because there's a human-ness in how, you know, you are showing up. With AI, be able to do that. And how do we teach our future talent this ability, you know, to make that connection, gather threads, really listen carefully.

Rebecca Taylor (13:39)
Yeah.

Yes, it is all about the listening from us hearing what we have to say and I think in taking other information too and just becoming, we don't have to be so knowledgeable that we can make our own LLMs, right? But just knowledgeable enough to understand its limitations and its potential because sometimes I think we focus too much on one or the other, too much on the potential, not enough on the limitations. And I think just having a really good grounding in both helps you to understand the tool better.

and know how to use it.

Deboleena Bose (14:15)
And I think what will also happen is we will get more and more subject matter experts use LLM for things around subject matter, which you need the subject matter expertise and you, know, parlay the LLM to create models, which are more helpful. Like, you know, compensation models, for example. I think there is, because so much of what we do,

Rebecca Taylor (14:20)
Mm-hmm.

Deboleena Bose (14:42)
Not just in HR, but in so many disciplines, it's both an art and a science.

Rebecca Taylor (14:47)
Yes, yes.

Deboleena Bose (14:49)
So

the science part of it, Yeah. Fascinating, you know, immense amounts of data, reviewing and analyzing a lot of data. That's the science part. But the art part is looking at that and pulling the data, which is most useful, your judgment.

Rebecca Taylor (15:08)
Yeah, yeah, it's true. it's even sometimes helping to make the connection if you have more of an art-oriented skill set or a science-oriented skill set, or maybe that's just the way your brain works. You can also kind of use AI as a guide and a connector to kind of help you to see the side that you might not be seeing. I think my favorite way that I've used it and the way that I've used tools is...

I can use sort of AI companions within maybe platforms and ask it questions about the data that's in there. I can say, you know, hey, is there a common theme and trend and feedback that employees are giving that I can act on? What are some recommendations that you might have that I can use to act on some of this? That thought partnership from an AI tool can be really, really helpful. And then you can take that thought partnership and then bring it to a human and say,

This is sort of what I've come to. This is how I've thought about it. Let's get some other human perspective and then see what we want to do.

Deboleena Bose (16:07)
Right. And I'm curious if you have seen this, that, know, but you have to have a point of view. Yes. And then you can have AI refine it and make it better. And I think that is what is going to take us a little bit of, you know, connection, connecting that and understanding that. Cause I don't think we can just go out to AI and say, tell me about XYZ. it happens. is that you have a thought.

Rebecca Taylor (16:17)
Yup.

Deboleena Bose (16:35)
process, you have a perspective, then you use AI like you're saying, almost that kind of a productivity to refine that.

Rebecca Taylor (16:44)
Yes. Yeah, yeah. And you're so right that the very important part is to have the perspective and point of view so that you have some informed perspective on what it is you're trying to accomplish and what you're trying to do. And that's where the nuances of letting AI make decisions versus using it as a thought partner with you very much in charge, that's sort of that inflection point that really kind of makes that difference.

Deboleena Bose (17:11)
Yes, at least where we are now. I don't know what is going to happen, but at this point, I think that's how we are using it and we are thinking about

Rebecca Taylor (17:15)
Right. ⁓

Yeah, I think that's cool. And I know we're coming up on time soon. I feel like I can chat with you about this all day. So what is one project that you're excited about for 2026, just taking advantage of the fact that it's the start of the year, right? What's one project that you're excited about for your employees right now?

Deboleena Bose (17:43)
One of the things that we've started in the last few years, we have gone through a lot of change and a lot of growth. And we have a large number of our people who are new to the bank. Some of it is through retirement, some of it is changing skillset, growth, all of that. So just in the last three years, we've had 40 % of new people. Yeah.

Rebecca Taylor (17:52)
Hmm.

wow, that's cool.

Deboleena Bose (18:13)
That means, you know, I talked about our mission, which is very purpose driven, right? What we are now doing is we're looking at our culture and saying, is this the culture we want? We are using this time, we've started this work on what we are calling building an intentional culture.

Rebecca Taylor (18:33)
Love that.

Deboleena Bose (18:35)
And it is, know, everyone has a culture.

Rebecca Taylor (18:39)
Yep.

Deboleena Bose (18:41)
our focus is, do we understand what that is? We like it, is that what we want? And, you know, how do we, if we like that, what others can we incorporate into it? Or this is, we're very excited about that. And the way that we're doing this, it's not like, you know, senior leadership is sitting in a room and will come out like with tablets.

Rebecca Taylor (18:45)
You

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's very cool.

Right.

That never works.

Deboleena Bose (19:12)
So it is through engaging the entire organization. That's the good part about being an organization, which is not too small, not too big. And we are pulling in people. We are having a whole set of programs that we have just launched. And we are excited about this journey that we are undertaking.

Rebecca Taylor (19:21)
Yeah, yeah.

It's very cool. And it sounds like you're sort of in this space too, where you're really trying to understand the reality of the culture, where you are assessing if it's where you want to be. like you said, seeing the aspirational side of it, what are our aspirational values? What do we hope we can be as we grow, not just in number, but also in ability, right? And in capability and strength. think that's such a good time to be doing that too.

Deboleena Bose (20:04)
Yeah, because kind of almost like we want to seize this opportunity. Right. When talking about, it's, know, so much change, right. But how about, you know, pulling that change in, use that as an impetus and a catalyst. Right. Yeah. And yes, there is change. So what is this for us?

Rebecca Taylor (20:09)
Yeah!

Yeah, there's always gonna be change. How do we wanna harness it? What do we wanna do with it? Don't let it take you over. Yes, well, that's great. And I really feel like I could talk to you all day. Do you have any closing thoughts you'd like to add before we stop?

Deboleena Bose (20:33)
Exactly.

Yeah, I just want to share this with my fellow HR professionals. I know it seems like with the advent of technology, there's so much of change going on in the broader environment. So many companies are pushing cost optimization and things like that. So it can feel very lonely.

You can feel that as HR professionals, we are kind of, you know, at the forefront with the brunt of taking a lot of tough decisions, communicating a lot of tough decisions. But I just think that, you know, we always have to keep in mind that at the end, we are human beings. And, you know, the best part of being in HR is that we deal with human beings.

Rebecca Taylor (21:22)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Deboleena Bose (21:31)
I always say that one size fits one. And the only way that we can do that by making sure that that humanity continues to be in business.

Rebecca Taylor (21:42)
Yeah, I love that. So true.

Deboleena Bose (21:45)
to live with. know, you know, doesn't matter how tough times are, we are here to support our employees and our business and we are critical and crucial for that.

Rebecca Taylor (21:59)
Yeah, so well said. Thank you. I feel like I need to put that on a plaque and just sort of as the main takeaway that it's so true. thank you for that perspective. think that's probably like some of the best advice I've heard on this podcast too. thank you, Debalino so much for being here. And I hope everybody listening has a great day. Thank you.

Deboleena Bose (22:21)
Thanks, Rebecca.