The island's largest bank promoted President Javier Ferrer to CEO, effective July 1. He will succeed Ignacio Alvarez, who will retire from the company at the end of June.
Victor Dodig is stepping down as CEO of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, the bank announced on Thursday.
Dodig, who has led CIBC since 2014, will leave his post on Oct. 31 of this year, the Toronto-based bank said. His successor will be Harry Culham, who currently serves as head of CIBC's capital markets division.
"I am very proud of all that we have accomplished together and believe the time is right to hand the baton to Harry," Dodig said in a statement. "I look forward to working closely with Harry and our entire leadership team as we continue delivering exceptional value for our clients, shareholders, and communities."
Culham is set to take over as president and CEO on Nov. 1, the day after Dodig retires. From then until the end of April 2026, CIBC said, Dodig will stay on as a special advisor to Culham and the bank's board of directors to ensure a "seamless transition."
"I'm delighted to take on these new responsibilities," Culham said in a statement. "I am enormously proud of the work we have done under Victor's leadership and am excited to build on our current momentum to fully realize the value of the strategy we have put in place over the past several years."
The announcement comes at a tumultuous moment for Canadian banks. As U.S. President Donald Trump alternately
At a conference hosted by the Royal Bank of Canada last week, CIBC Chief Financial Officer Robert Sedran said the bank had been stress testing for risks to the Canadian and U.S. economies. Most of all, he said, CIBC is concerned about the impact of all the uncertainty on clients' businesses.
"People don't quite know how to plan," Sedran said. "Nobody's making plans for two, three, four weeks. … It's a difficult environment in which they are trying to do that."
Sedran emphasized that CIBC is "very relationship-focused," echoing Dodig's guiding philosophy for the bank. During his 11 years at the helm, the outgoing CEO worked to put client relationships at the center of CIBC's business.
"Victor's tenure as President and CEO has been marked by a relentless focus on our clients and an unwavering commitment to transforming CIBC into the modern, relationship-oriented bank it is today," Kate Stevenson, chair of the bank's board of directors, said in a statement.
During Dodig's tenure, CIBC expanded its U.S. presence with the purchase of Chicago-based bank PrivateBancorp in 2017. Compared with other large Canadian banks, CIBC was relatively late in building a footprint in the U.S. market.
"It requires some time to [develop] an entry strategy," Dodig
After the announcement of Dodig's retirement, some analysts admitted they hadn't seen it coming.
"We are a little surprised by the timing of Victor Dodig's retirement as we believed that he was likely to stay in the role for a couple of more years in order to see his strategy through," John Aiken of Jefferies wrote in a note.
Aiken quickly added, however, that he feels confident in the bank's new leadership. In an effort to aid the transition, Culham will take over as chief operating officer on April 1, 2025.
"As the bank is firmly in its transformation, we see little risk in the transfer of control," Aiken wrote. "The banks have recently moved away from appointing CEOs from within their capital markets operations in recent years. However, we believe that Mr. Culham is an excellent fit."
