Established in 2020 by The Globe and Mail's Report on
"For several decades, BMO has advocated for gender equity. Our Purpose, to boldly grow the good in business and life, calls for us to lead in eliminating barriers to inclusion by promoting equity for women and for all," said
For the 2022 ranking, Report on Business conducted a journalistic analysis of nearly 500 large, publicly traded Canadian companies, evaluating the ratio of female-identifying to male-identifying executives in the top three tiers of executive leadership. The resulting data was applied to a weighted formula that also factored in company performance, diversity and year-to-year change. In total, 74 companies earned the 2022 Women Lead Here seal, with a combined average of 46% of executive roles held by female-identifying individuals.
The bank's commitment to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in its workforce has yielded important results:
- More than 41 per cent of senior leadership roles are held by women; globally, this number has remained above 40 per cent for the past five years.
- Half of the Independent Directors of
BMO Financial Group's Board of Directors are women.
"Our Zero Barriers to Inclusion 2025 strategy sets bold goals within the bank, ensures equitable access to career development opportunities and enables inclusive economic growth for our customers and communities," said
Additional initiatives and highlights of BMO's work to advance gender equity in its workforce and beyond include:
- Introduced a five-year strategy, Zero Barriers to Inclusion 2025, aimed at eliminating barriers to inclusion and increasing diversity goals for senior leader and executive roles. The strategy will give further opportunities for women who identify as BIPOC, 2SLGBTQ+ and persons with disabilities.
BMO Alliance for Women is BMO's largestEnterprise Resource Group with over 4,000 members, that is dedicated to championing the inclusion, connection, development, advancement and support of women for the betterment of BMO's business, communities and culture.- Supported 119,000 women entrepreneurs across BMO's Canadian footprint this year and re-committed
$5 billion in capital available over five years to Canadian businesses owned by women. - BMO has a long and rich partnership with Catalyst, with BMO's CEO
Darryl White serving as Chair of Catalyst'sCanada Advisory Board and a Director on Catalyst's Board of Directors. - Launched a
$750 million Women in Business Bond solution with proceeds allocated toward supporting Canadian women-owned businesses. - Committed
$1.2 million in funding to SheEO – a not-for-profit company which offers financial support to businesses led by women-identifying and non-binary people. - A dedicated website for women, www.bmoforwomen.com, provides tools and educational resources for women entrepreneurs, including podcast series Bold(h)er
- Executive sponsorship of
Plan International Canada's Girls Belong Here program, which places young women in positions of leadership, power and influence for a day. - Honouring the achievements of women leaders in communities across
North America through the BMO Celebrating Women Grant program. - Partnering with
The Prosperity Project TM, as co-presenting sponsor to fund industry-leading research on gender diversity and intersectionality in Corporate Canada.
The full list of 2022 Women Lead Here honourees can be found in the April issue of Report on
Serving customers for 200 years and counting, BMO is a highly diversified financial services provider - the 8th largest bank, by assets, in North America. With total assets of $1.02 trillion as of January 31, 2022, and a team of diverse and highly engaged employees, BMO provides a broad range of personal and commercial banking, wealth management and investment banking products and services to more than 12 million customers and conducts business through three operating groups: Personal and Commercial Banking,
The
Internet: www.bmo.com Twitter: @BMOMedia
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