Innovation Leadership

Making banking easier: Takeaways from our CPDIT townhall

A leadership forum centered on aligning technology, culture and modernization efforts to make banking easier for clients.

Nelson De Jesus Apr. 13, 2026 2-minute read

I recently had the pleasure of hosting our Canadian Personal, Digital Investing Technology and Information Technology Transformation town hall, where we welcomed active participation and feedback across our teams.

As we continue to build the digital bank of the future, in-person connections across our teams play a crucial role. By working together to design and deliver the platforms that support personal banking, investing and client experiences, we ensure that our efforts to make banking more accessible, intuitive and secure remain strong and effective.

Three key themes emerged from the town hall.

1. Connectivity is a competitive advantage

Transformation at scale depends on alignment across business, digital and technology. Clients do not experience business units; they experience CIBC. When we stay connected to frontline realities and design around end-to-end journeys, we reduce friction, make better decisions and move faster.

2. Modernization must serve the client

Ed Dodig, Executive Vice-President, Personal Banking and Imperial Service, reinforced that technology is a key enabler, and modernization should focus on delivering exceptional client experience. It should simplify how clients engage with us, support seamless experiences across channels, and open up capacity for our frontline team to spend more time deepening client relationships through advice, financial planning and personalized solutions.

3. AI requires discipline and culture

In our fireside chat, Jaime Tatis, Executive Vice-President, Chief Data and Artificial Intelligence Officer, and Chris Patterson, Vice-President, Enterprise Artificial Intelligence Platforms and Solutions, brought clarity to how we should approach AI in a regulated environment. AI needs strong governance, security and controls. It must be explainable, auditable and integrated responsibly with our core systems.

Jaime also emphasized that the biggest opportunity for transformation is not technology; it is culture. As he put it, “80% of any transformation is culture and 20% is strategy.” He cautioned against becoming order takers and challenged teams to think like business owners: ask why, understand the outcome we are driving, and confirm the work being requested solves the underlying problem.

That discipline matters because AI will scale whatever process we put behind it and disciplined adoption depends on teams that question, understand end-to-end workflows, and take responsibility for results.

Looking ahead, our success will be defined by how effectively we connect strategy, technology and culture to make banking easier for clients.

Written by

Nelson De Jesus
Executive Vice-President
Canadian Personal, Digital, Investing Technology and IT Transformation