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TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - March 6, 2013) - BMO Financial Group is the only Canadian bank named amongst winners of the prestigious WhatWorks(R) Awards, which were announced today by Bersin by Deloitte – a global research and consulting company that guides Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 companies worldwide to develop and implement effective HR, talent and learning strategies.

The Awards recognize organizations from around the world that have achieved significant operational improvement by applying unique and innovative approaches to critical HR, learning and talent challenges.

According to Bersin by Deloitte, BMO Financial Group was chosen in the 'Developing Tomorrow's Leaders' category for its unique, three-tier Leadership Development Curriculum. The curriculum resulted in revenue growth, improvements in productivity, employee engagement, retention, morale and greater collaboration between executive and middle managers.

More than 1,600 leaders have participated in the bank's program since 2008.

"BMO differentiates itself in the marketplace as a customer-centric organization," said Barbara Dirks, Senior Vice President and Chief Learning Officer, BMO Financial Group. "Our strength is our employees and their commitment to deliver innovative and relevant solutions and guidance to our customers. Our success is predicated upon our ability to sustain customer loyalty by delivering a great experience to our customers each and every time they interact with us.

"BMO recognizes that learning plays a pivotal role in engaging and supporting our 46,000 plus employees and leaders," said Ms. Dirks. "Developing talented and engaged employees is one way we keep our customers' success front and centre.

"The Institute for Learning (IFL), our corporate university, interacts regularly with leaders and employees of all levels across the enterprise. This close proximity gives us unique and current insights into what is important to our employees and to our customers and enables us to integrate these insights into learning and leadership programs and into customer products and solutions that emerge from the collaborative work we undertake with our business partners across the organization.

"This award recognizes the collaborative efforts with many groups across the enterprise. Our intent in developing this program was to create common language, models and frameworks for our leaders on how we lead, manage, and inspire our workforce. New and experienced leaders benefit from this program and we take great pride in ensuring that everyone receives the training they need to turn their potential into performance," said Ms. Dirks.

In 2012, BMO's investment in training and development at an enterprise level was $90.6 million or $1,947 per employee.

About BMO Financial Group

Established in 1817 as Bank of Montreal, BMO Financial Group is a highly diversified North American financial services organization. With total assets of $542 billion as at January 31, 2013, and more than 46,000 employees, BMO Financial Group provides a broad range of retail banking, wealth management and investment banking products and solutions.

About Bersin by Deloitte

Bersin by Deloitte delivers research-based people strategies designed to help leaders and their organizations in their efforts to deliver exceptional business performance. Our WhatWorks® membership gives Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 HR professionals the information and tools they need to design and implement leading practice solutions, benchmark against others, develop their staff, and select and implement systems. A piece of Bersin by Deloitte research is downloaded on average approximately every minute during the business day. More than 5,000 organizations worldwide use our research and consulting to guide their HR, talent and learning strategies. For more information, please visit www.deloitte.com/bersin or www.bersin.com.