Where to from here: The value of experience in plotting the path forward

There’s no doubt about it - it’s unsettling to navigate a health and economic crisis in tandem. After all of the hurdles our society and economy have overcome, it started to feel like we had a playbook for almost everything. But when COVID-19 showed up at our global doorstep, there was no manual for managing a global pandemic and economic shutdown at the same time – including soaring jobless rates and a sudden and significant contraction in growth.

This moment in time also reaffirmed to me how important it is to have the right experience at the table to help plot the path forward. At BMO, it’s been comforting to benefit from more than two centuries of experience. We’ve helped our clients through two world wars, the Spanish Flu, and countless economic shocks. And while these times were really, really, challenging, we have always emerged stronger.

It’s been awe-inspiring to watch this experience base kick into action over the past few weeks. To be able to fully help our clients, we needed to ensure our people first felt secure in their environment. We took swift action to ensure their safety, changing the setup of our offices and branches, and equipping many to work from home. Transitioning thousands of people to work remotely overnight understandably brings several challenges! But it has been incredible to watch teams quickly work together to fix them. We’ve also provided everyone with access to medical experts, and virtual advice, to ensure our people feel well informed.  

For our clients, we’ve brought expertise and resources to help communities navigating massive economic disruption. For example, we introduced a flexible financial relief program for our personal and business banking clients, and donated $1 million to United Way to support urgent community crisis relief efforts, so they could look after the community’s most vulnerable as we do our own families and businesses.  

In Wealth Management, I’m proud of how our teams have stepped up to help our clients make sense of all the uncertainty. We’ve made hundreds of thousands of individual calls to provide our clients with needed guidance. We’ve also delivered extensive insights literally in real-time on the evolving economic crisis – bringing on the full strength of our expertise in North America, Europe and Asia. A recent webcast, hosted by our U.S. Chief Investment Officer, brought together several experts to review ideas from a banking, trust and tax perspective, recognizing this market presents both risks and opportunities.

We’re not at end of job, and this book will likely have many chapters. But as this crisis continues to evolve, it’s never been more important to have the right kind of experience and expertise around the table to plot the path forward.