National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation

As part of our annual contribution to the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation (NAAF), CIBC supports Blueprint for the Future, a series of youth career fairs targeted at aboriginal high school students, as well as CIBC Achievers, a scholarship program for aboriginal youth.

We also sponsor an awards program that recognizes outstanding achievement in the aboriginal community.

In person: Leonard Flett

The program honours achievers like Leonard Flett, the 2002 winner of the CIBC Business and Commerce Award.

"I hope my own grandchildren will follow in my footsteps," says Flett, Vice-President, Store Development & Public Affairs for the North West Company in Winnipeg, Manitoba. "The future of our communities depends on our young people going into this field."

Since joining the North West Company - a groceries and general merchandise retailer serving remote communities in the Far North - in the early 1960s, Flett has worked tirelessly to help bring economic development to First Nations communities.

Over the last 8 years, he has engineered 40 innovative transactions with aboriginal communities to establish business alliances that have created new stores on reserves with the bands acting as landlords.

Today, these partnerships represent over $100 million in investments on reserves and have generated over 500 new jobs in aboriginal communities.

"We've made great strides in getting aboriginal communities to understand business and to encourage young people to think of business as a career," he explains.

National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation

In person: Leonard Flett

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