Darryl White named 2026 Ivey Business Leader of the Year: His perspective on leadership

BMO Financial Group’s CEO Darryl White has received the 2026 Ivey Business Leader Award, recognizing his leadership and contributions to both business and the communities we serve. 

Since becoming CEO in 2017, Darryl has guided BMO through significant growth and transformation. Under his leadership, the bank has expanded its North American platform through the largest acquisition in Canadian banking history, invested in innovative digital and AI capabilities, and helped clients make real financial progress. Beyond banking, he also contributes his leadership to the wider business community and non-profit organizations across Canada and the United States. 

At the award dinner, Darryl reflected on the changes he has seen throughout his career and shared what leadership demands in an era of rapid technological change. 

Five leadership takeaways 

1. Responsibility enables trust. Trust enables adoption. And adoption is what turns innovation into impact.  

Trust has always been the bank’s most valuable asset, and it is central to how BMO deploys AI. As AI’s impact grows, so do expectations for rigorous testing, monitoring and explainability. Organizations must remain accountable for the outcomes. 

2. Technology changes. The fundamentals of leadership do not. 

Darryl noted that technology has transformed nearly every aspect of business and banking over the course of his career. But technology cannot answer the most important questions: “[AI] cannot determine our values or define our purpose. It cannot tell us what kind of institutions we should build. Those are leadership questions. They are stewardship questions. And they remain human questions.” 

3. Leadership is not about having every answer. It is about asking better questions. 

Every generation has faced a technological game-changer – from the telephone, mainframe and PC to the internet, mobile devices and cloud computing. Today, it’s AI and quantum technology. 

The familiar question is, “What will this technology do to us?” The better question is, “What will we choose to do with it?” 

4. The values we bring to technology shape the value it creates. 

Technology does not determine outcomes on its own. People, leaders and institutions do. The principles that guide how technology is developed and deployed ultimately shape the value it creates. 

5. AI is a technology challenge. It is also a risk-management challenge – and fundamentally, it’s a leadership challenge.  

With technology as a defining institutional capability, leaders must understand the opportunities, risks and responsibilities involved in deploying it at scale. The challenge is to apply that discipline without allowing prudence to become inertia. 

A legacy of leadership 

Darryl joins a distinguished group of past Ivey Business Leader Award recipients, including BMO’s Board Chair George Cope, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and business leader Peter Munk. This honour is among several recognizing his leadership in business and the community, including the International Horatio Alger Award and The Globe and Mail’s CEO of the Year and Strategist of the Year awards.