Since doubling CIBC's U.S. tech workforce to 500 people over 2 ½ years, Brittany Scott has focused on developing internal talent and opening pathways into the bank.
It's starting to pay off, as the U.S. technology, data and AI CIO has cut costs by $15 million over three years and Canada's fifth-largest bank keeps pace with its even larger rivals. In the past year, CIBC has moved about 90% of its applications to the cloud by dropping its legacy data centers and has created a new digital banking platform in the last 18 months.
To attract the best engineers and coders, Scott launched the CIBC technology apprenticeship program, which did away with its requirement that applicants have a four-year college degree. The program, now in its second year, has achieved a 100% conversion rate to full-time employment.
"If you only have one pathway into a technology career, you're only going to get the people going down that path," Scott said. "Small tweaks were made, like adjusting job titles to 'engineer' rather than bank employee X and telling applicants, 'we're building a brand-new digital platform, and you get to be a part of that from the ground up.' That's exciting for someone working in technology, and I think the market responded to that."
Scott's overall mandate is to drive revenue growth in CIBC's U.S. business through new product offerings, establish a comprehensive business technology road map aligned with the bank's strategy, and manage $250 million in tech spend. "Under her leadership, we modernized our data centers and strengthened governance across the organization. Her ability to turn vision into results delivered capabilities our clients had been waiting for and significantly improved our operational resilience," CIBC's Brad Fedesoff, EVP, U.S. chief administrative officer, technology, data and AI, said.
While the largest banks are transitioning to digital assets, CIBC's move to cloud-based tech, while a bit behind the curve, has offered many benefits. Scott listed being able to scale operations more quickly, adding resiliency by using multiple hyperscalers, improving security and being able to create new customer services.
Regarding CIBC and digital assets, Scott said the bank is looking at the possibilities but isn't actively pursuing anything. "The advantages of tokenized transactions—whether it's payments or loans or whatever—I do think we're going to get there because of some of the benefits it gives you," she said. "It'll definitely have to be something we do in partnership with our clients, because we're not going to be able to do that without them."
