Media Releases

Rotman initiative for women in business renews sponsorship agreement with BMO Financial Group

March 17, 2014

TORONTO, ON – Exec­u­tives in the GTA will find renewed inspi­ra­tion in 2014 thanks to BMO Finan­cial Group’s con­tin­ued spon­sor­ship of the Women in Lead­er­ship Speak­ers series at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Rot­man School of Man­age­ment.  The one-year renew­al of spon­sor­ship will allow the Rot­man Ini­tia­tive for Women in Busi­ness to bring some of the world’s top lead­ers and authors to its Toron­to audi­ence.

“Last year we saw stand­ing-room only audi­ences,” says Beat­rix Dart, Asso­ciate Dean, Exec­u­tive Degree Pro­grams and Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Rot­man Ini­tia­tive for Women in Busi­ness. “BMO’s spon­sor­ship helps us bring in speak­ers who inspire and rein­force what we teach in our exec­u­tive devel­op­ment pro­grams through­out the year.”

The series was launched in 2008 and has host­ed dozens of dis­tin­guished speak­ers includ­ing Dee Dee Myers, for­mer White House Press Sec­re­tary; Mar­i­lyn Carl­son Nel­son, Chair and CEO, Carl­son; Irene Rosen­feld, Chair and CEO, Kraft Foods, Inc.; Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Found­ing Pres­i­dent, Cen­ter for Work-Life Pol­i­cy; Ilene Lang, Pres­i­dent and CEO, Cat­a­lyst; and Kirs­tine Stew­art, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor, Twit­ter Cana­da. Each of the events attracts more than 120 mid- to senior-lev­el exec­u­tives from the GTA.

“At BMO, we embrace diver­si­ty as part of our core val­ues. We have a long his­to­ry of sup­port­ing the advance­ment of women in busi­ness,” says Lynn Roger, Chief Tal­ent Offi­cer at BMO Finan­cial Group. “This con­tin­ued part­ner­ship with Rot­man rec­og­nizes the val­ue we place on women as lead­ers, and it will help to edu­cate future gen­er­a­tions about the strength that comes from a diverse and inclu­sive work­place.”

The Spring 2014 ses­sion of the Women in Lead­er­ship Speak­ers Series, spon­sored by BMO, will fea­ture:

May 27, 2014
Mar­garet Hef­fer­nan, Author and Entre­pre­neur
“A Big­ger Prize: How We Can Do Bet­ter Than the Com­pe­ti­tion”
Com­pe­ti­tion has run amok. Social Dar­win­ism, sur­vival of the fittest, is crude­ly under­stood as jus­ti­fy­ing a win­ner-takes-all cul­ture. If you want get into the best school, land the right job, buy the cool dress, find the per­fect part­ner, be made for life, you have tread under­foot any and all your rivals. Com­pe­ti­tion has become a sim­plis­tic zero-sum game, played with­out any enjoy­ment at all. In her newest book, Mar­garet Hef­fer­nan dis­pels this myth. Lead­ing read­ers on a wide-rang­ing tour of com­pe­ti­tion across lead­ing glob­al orga­ni­za­tions and indus­tries, she expos­es how des­per­ate­ly busi­ness, finance and edu­ca­tion needs a cur­ricu­lum that nur­tures, devel­ops and enlarges our col­lab­o­ra­tive tal­ents.

June 18, 2014
Pres­i­dent Deb­o­ra Spar of Barnard Col­lege, a wom­en’s lib­er­al arts col­lege affil­i­at­ed with Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty.
“Won­der Women: Sex, Pow­er, and the Quest for Per­fec­tion”
Won­der Women is Spar’s sto­ry and the cul­ture’s sto­ry. Armed with reams of new research, she exam­ines how wom­en’s lives have and have not changed over the past forty years. The chal­lenges con­fronting women are more com­plex than ever. They stem from breast pumps and Manolo pumps; from men whose eyes linger on a wom­an’s rear and men who rush that same rear out the door. They’re prob­lems that come inher­ent­ly and inevitably from being female. Yet they’re falling on gen­er­a­tions of women who grew up believ­ing that none of these things are sup­posed to mat­ter now. Won­der Women gives us an impor­tant voice in an increas­ing­ly heat­ed debate. In this wise, often fun­ny, always human, and smart­ly con­ceived book, Spar asks: How far have women real­ly come? And what will it take to get true equal­i­ty for good?

Reg­is­tra­tion for the events is  avail­able online at www.rotman.utoronto.ca/events.

Fall 2014 Speak­ers will be announced at a lat­er date.

In Octo­ber 2013 the BMO Finan­cial Group Finance Research and Trad­ing Lab was inau­gu­rat­ed at the Rot­man School. The lab pro­vides Rot­man stu­dents with access to real-time finan­cial resources and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to gain hands-on train­ing in a range of finan­cial dis­ci­plines, includ­ing invest­ment strat­e­gy and port­fo­lio man­age­ment, risk man­age­ment, trad­ing and analy­sis of the microstruc­ture of mar­kets.

About BMO Finan­cial Group
Estab­lished in 1817 as Bank of Mon­tre­al, BMO Finan­cial Group is a high­ly diver­si­fied finan­cial ser­vices orga­ni­za­tion based in North Amer­i­ca. The bank offers a broad range of retail bank­ing, wealth man­age­ment and invest­ment bank­ing prod­ucts and ser­vices to more than 12 mil­lion cus­tomers. BMO Finan­cial Group had total assets of $593 bil­lion and more than 45,500 employ­ees at Jan­u­ary 31, 2014.

About the Ini­tia­tive for Women in Busi­ness and the Rot­man School of Man­age­ment
The Rot­man School of Man­age­ment is the only busi­ness school in Cana­da to have an Ini­tia­tive ded­i­cat­ed to strength­en­ing the female tal­ent pipeline. Found­ed in 2008, the Rot­man Ini­tia­tive for Women in Busi­ness is a proven force for change that empow­ers women to advance in their careers. From the class­room to the board­room, the Rot­man Ini­tia­tive pro­vides lead­er­ship devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties, new ways of think­ing and vital con­nec­tions with like-mind­ed pro­fes­sion­als. With trust­ed for­ward-think­ing part­ner cor­po­ra­tions and orga­ni­za­tions, the Rot­man Ini­tia­tive helps to cre­ate a busi­ness land­scape that is pros­per­ous and equi­table.

The Rot­man School of Man­age­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to is redesign­ing busi­ness edu­ca­tion for the 21st cen­tu­ry with a cur­ricu­lum based on Inte­gra­tive Think­ing. Locat­ed in the world’s most diverse city, the Rot­man School fos­ters a new way to think that enables the design of cre­ative busi­ness solu­tions. For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.rotman.utoronto.ca.

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For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact:

Ken McGuf­fin
Man­ag­er, Media Rela­tions
Rot­man School of Man­age­ment
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Tel: 416–946-3818
mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca
Fol­low the Ini­tia­tive on Twit­ter: @rotmanwomen
Watch Rot­man on You Tube: www.youtube.com/rotmanschool

BMO Finan­cial Group
Erin Mar­ran­ca
Media Rela­tions
Tel: 416–867-3996
Erin.marranca@bmo.com