Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce will get a new head of U.S. operations this year, as the Toronto-based lender continues its years-long push for stateside market share.
CIBC will shuffle its executive leadership team in tandem with its previously-announced CEO transition, promoting Kevin Li to president and CEO of CIBC Bank USA, the company announced Tuesday. The previous U.S. head, Shawn Beber, will retire next July, the bank said.
In March, CIBC announced that CEO Victor Dodig
CIBC, which has total assets of 1 trillion Canadian dollars, was a latecomer among Canadian banks targeting U.S. growth. It kickstarted its expansion in the country in 2017 with the acquisition of PrivateBancorp in Chicago. Li will mark the fourth leader of the bank’s American unit since then.
The bank has stayed resolute to a years-old, three-pronged strategy for growing in the U.S., Beber said at a conference last year. That strategy is focused on adding commercial banking clients, expanding private wealth management and investing in technology and infrastructure.
Beber has led CIBC USA since 2022, and has been at the bank for more than 20 years, having previously served as chief risk officer and head of U.S. capital markets, among other roles. He was involved in CIBC’s purchase of PrivateBancorp, when he was the Canadian bank’s general counsel, leading strategy and corporate development.
“[Beber] has been instrumental in our progress in the U.S., ensuring that we have a strong, diversified cross-border platform and a disciplined, risk controlled approach to growing the business,” incoming CEO Culham said in a prepared statement Tuesday.
But CIBC’s U.S. arm has also hit some bumps in the road recently. After the rapid rise of interest rates in 2022 and 2023, office loans proved troublesome for banks across the country, including CIBC, which said it would
Profits from commercial banking and wealth management in the U.S. made up about 10% of the company’s bottom line in CIBC’s most recent quarterly results.
“Obviously, our home market is Canada. But we have, over the past 10 years, grown our business in the United States,” Dodig said in April. “We did that because we believe in the strength of an integrated North American economy over the long term. That has benefited our Canadian clients. It’s benefited our American clients, and it’s benefited their cross-border business.”
Dodig added in May that the bank’s clients were seeing more volatility due to Trump administration tariff policies that put pressure on U.S.-Canada relations. But the previous month, he said the company would “continue to lean in” with its clients across both Canada and the U.S.
Li, who’s been at CIBC for more than three decades, will become chief of the U.S. business after leading global investment banking. He’s also served as head of CIBC in Europe and has held other leadership positions in Canada, but has been based in Chicago since 2018.
Also on Tuesday, CIBC announced new appointees as head of capital markets, chief administrative officer, head of personal and business banking, head of commercial banking and wealth management, chief of staff and chief legal officer. The company’s current chief legal officer, Kikelomo Lawal, who developed its environmental, sustainability and governance strategy, will retire.
