William Downe is President and Chief Executive Officer of BMO Financial Group. He was appointed CEO on March 1, 2007.

Operating under a single vision: to be the bank that defines great customer experience, BMO Financial Group is a North American bank that serves more than 12 million personal, commercial, corporate and institutional customers.

Mr. Downe joined Bank of Montreal in 1983 and held a variety of senior management positions in Canada and the U.S. In 1999, he was appointed Vice-Chair, Bank of Montreal and, in 2001, he was named Deputy Chair of BMO Financial Group and Chief Executive Officer, BMO Nesbitt Burns. In 2006, he was appointed Chief Operating Officer of BMO Financial Group.

He is the only Canadian member of the International Business Leaders Advisory Council of the Mayor of Beijing (IBLAC), and he is a member of the International Advisory Council of Guanghua School of Management at Peking University. Mr. Downe is a Director of ManpowerGroup. He is also on the Board of Trustees of the Rush University Medical Center and a member of the Board’s Compensation and Human Resources Committee. Mr. Downe is a director of Catalyst and a member of Catalyst’s Canadian Board of Advisors. He is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago and Past President of the Federal Reserve Board’s Federal Advisory Council.

In the community, Mr. Downe sits on the board of Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital Foundation, and he is a member of the Campaign Executive, for The Campaign for the University of Toronto. He served as Chairman of the 2009 Campaign Cabinet for United Way of Greater Toronto, and he is also past Chair of the Board of Directors of St. Michael’s Hospital.

Mr. Downe holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wilfrid Laurier University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Toronto. In 2003, he received the Rotman Distinguished Business Alumni Award from the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management.

(February 2012)

W. Downe (high resolution picture, jpg, 240k)