People walk near a sign for the Royal Bank of Canada in Toronto, on Dec. 13.CARLOS OSORIO/Reuters
It seems Gord Nixon was overly optimistic.
Back in August of 2010, when he was still chief executive officer of Royal Bank of Canada , Mr. Nixon made a prediction that set tongues wagging on Bay Street and beyond. His prognostication? A woman could soon be appointed to the top job at one of Canada’s Big Six banks.
“I’d say there’s a very good chance that some time in the next round of successions there will be a female [bank] CEO,” Mr. Nixon declared on BNN at the time.
When the CEO of Canada’s largest bank makes such statements, people pay attention. A reporter at The Globe and Mail at the time reasoned that Mr. Nixon “is in a position to know,” and wrote a story about top female contenders at the major banks – none of whom ever got the top job.
It’s easy to explain away that lack of success by poking holes in each candidate’s CV or by arguing it just wasn’t their time to lead. But more than 11 years have passed since Mr. Nixon made that plausible prediction, and there still hasn’t been a female CEO at a major bank.
Are Canadians really to believe there isn’t a single qualified woman in the entire banking industry who is capable of running a Big Six lender?
Frankly, this fortified glass ceiling makes Canada’s banking industry look small-minded – especially since large banks in other countries have already pulled off this seemingly impossible feat.
Corporate directors of Canada’s six biggest banks will be forced to remedy this problem sooner rather than later because shareholders are demanding they walk the talk on diversity and inclusion.
Sure, CEO turnover is a slow process and each bank is bound to follow its own schedule. But National Bank of Canada has already kicked off the next round of successions by appointing Laurent Ferreira as its new CEO on Nov. 1.
Mr. Ferreira, of course, is eminently qualified for his job. But there will most certainly be blowback from investors and the Canadian public if none of the Big Six banks closes the power gap that has traditionally kept women out of those CEO roles.
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The excuses have worn thin, especially since Canada’s smaller financial institutions have made strides. Monique Leroux, for instance, served as president and CEO of Desjardins Group from 2008 to 2016. Linda Seymour, meanwhile, is HSBC Bank Canada’s second female CEO after being appointed to that role in 2020. Rania Llewellyn, who was born in Kuwait to an Egyptian father and Jordanian mother, became CEO of Laurentian Bank of Canada last year.
Directors of Big Six banks could also take remedial lessons from foreign lenders. For instance, three of Israel’s five largest banks have already had female CEOs. Australian investment bank Macquarie Group appointed its first female CEO, Shemara Wikramanayake, a woman of Sri Lankan heritage, in 2018. And earlier this year, Jane Fraser became CEO of Citigroup Inc., the third-biggest bank in the United States.
So, what’s holding back Canada’s six biggest banks from making similar progress? If their public-relations statements are to be believed, absolutely nothing. All claim to prioritize the advancement of women and other diverse candidates.
Trouble is, every bank has a different way of defining its female talent pool for CEO succession. Some include all female executives in that group, while others quantify those in executive vice-president roles and above. This is partly because job titles vary from lender to lender.
But it’s also a smokescreen because women are still underrepresented in top-ranking executive roles, which is the real training ground for future CEOs.
For instance, RBC says that 44 per cent of its executives are women, but there are just three women among its 10 executive officers.
Toronto-Dominion Bank , which has announced plans to shuffle its executive ranks on Jan. 1, didn’t respond to a request for comment about its CEO succession plans. As of Thursday, however, TD had four women on its 13-member senior leadership team.
Women constitute 33 per cent of executive vice-president roles and above at Bank of Nova Scotia . Meanwhile, there are nine women on its 31-member executive management team.
At Bank of Montreal , 41.2 per cent of senior leaders are female, but there are just three women out of 11 people on its executive committee. National Bank, meanwhile, says that women comprise four out of nine of Mr. Ferreira’s direct reports.
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce , however, is probably the most interesting bank to watch. All eyes are on Laura Dottori-Attanasio, who currently serves as senior executive vice-president and group head of personal and business banking in Canada.
Not only is Ms. Dottori-Attanasio one of four women on CIBC’s 10-person senior executive team, she is the bank’s former chief risk officer. There’s been speculation for more than eight years that she is being groomed for eventual advancement to the CEO role.
Canadians want to believe that our banks are being earnest when they make public statements about dismantling systemic discrimination. After all, big banks set an example for other public companies.
But it’s obvious that investors need uniform diversity disclosures from our banks to judge which ones are actually making progress.
In addition to details about the composition of the banks’ executive teams and boards, shareholders deserve to know how many women and diverse candidates work in a profit-and-loss (P&L) capacity versus back-office jobs. Such statistics about P&L jobs would provide much-needed clarity on who is being identified for future advancement opportunities.
Major banks also need to take a hint from their progressive-minded alumni. Mr. Nixon, who is currently chair of the board at BCE Inc., made a clear-eyed prediction back in 2010. How many more years will pass before a Big Six bank proves him right?
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