News Releases

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - March 17, 2014) - 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 PBeatrix 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.