BMO CEO Darryl White on Partnering to Advance Economic Inclusion

In the run up to the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meetings beginning in Davos on January 20, BMO’s CEO has authored a compelling perspective piece for meeting participants and stakeholders on WEF’s official blog. In it, CEO Darryl White discusses the learnings stemming from BMO’s ongoing partnership with United Way Greater Toronto, with whom BMO has worked to convene stakeholders from Toronto’s social, private and public sector to address growing inclusive local economic opportunity. While the barrier to success, or fairness gap, faced by many Toronto residents in underserviced neighbourhoods is a complex issue, he explains that the partnership has revealed that by working together, stakeholders can make significant progress in unlocking economic opportunity in local areas facing structural barriers, with a goal of more inclusive growth. He further argues for the critical role of the private sector in addressing and finding solutions to intractable issues. One of the key learnings from the Toronto initiative has been, for Mr. White, the need for “sustainable and scalable tactics and frameworks that corporations, governments and community groups can use to tackle these issues together.” For BMO, that sense of scalability of the framework—and adaptability—means that what is being achieved in Toronto can be customized and replicated in other municipalities. Already, work is underway to extend the model in Chicago through a partnership between BMO, the City of Chicago and its United Way.

Read the article here.