Building Trust in Private Banking: A Conversation with Jonathan Hass

As the year draws to a close, private banking in Canada continues to evolve with increasing complexity and rising expectations. CIBC Private Banking has been recognized as the Best Private Bank in Canada for 2025, reflecting the strength of its team, its disciplined service model, and its ability to support families with diverse and far-reaching financial needs. In this conversation, Jonathan Hass, Managing Director and Head of CIBC Private Banking, Canada, discusses the leadership approach, priorities, and client-focused practices that continue to guide the business and reinforce its position in the market.

What does this recognition mean to you and the CIBC Private Banking team? In your view, what are the key factors that have contributed to CIBC being named Best Private Bank in Canada for 2025?

Being named Best Private Bank in Canada for 2025 is a testament to the dedication and expertise of our team, from Halifax to Victoria. It reflects our commitment to white-glove service, innovative liquidity solutions, and seamless cross-bank delivery for client needs whether simple or complex. Most importantly, it underscores the impact of our client-centric approach and the tailored strategies we continuously develop for high and ultra-high net worth families.

Our momentum is grounded in four strategic priorities:

• Growing and developing talent
• Simplifying processes
• Deepening client relationships
• Driving cross-bank connectivity and new client growth

These priorities create consistency and excellence in the everyday moments that build long-term trust.

Can you share examples of innovative solutions or programs CIBC has introduced for entrepreneurs? How do you foster a culture of innovation within Private Banking?

We launched the CIBC Private Banking Elite Program for entrepreneurs and the senior leadership of our corporate clients —offering significant annual personal banking savings, lifetime status, fee rebates, and preferred lending offers. On the credit side, we’ve introduced customized solutions such as unsecured lending based on enterprise value, upfront insurance lending, and revolvers secured against a broad basket of securities.

Our award-winning AI platform, CIBC AI, streamlines processes and enhances client focus; it was recognized as Best Gen-AI Initiative at The Digital Banker’s 2024 Innovation Awards. We foster innovation by investing in talent, partnering across the bank, and relentlessly simplifying experiences—freeing our teams to spend more time on proactive client service.

How does your approach differ across wealth stages? What strategies ensure personalized service for clients with varying needs and complexity?

Our model is built on personalization. We tailor solutions to each client’s stage of their financial journey, the complexity of their liquidity needs, their goals-based investing priorities, and their planning requirements—while reflecting the unique dynamics of their industry, community, and family.

At foundational stages, clients benefit from holistic banking, tailored credit structuring, and coordinated planning that aligns day-to-day needs with longer-term objectives. As complexity grows, we bring multi-entity and multi-currency cash and credit strategies together with integrated planning across tax, estate, philanthropy, and family governance, complemented by institutional-caliber investment resources.

Personalization extends across industries, communities, and groups. Entrepreneurs navigating growth and potential liquidity events, professionals managing practice cash flow, real estate owners balancing income and leverage, newcomers establishing cross-border financial lives, men and women leaders juggling multiple priorities, and rising-generation stewards building financial fluency—all receive advice that respects their context and priorities.

Every client is supported by a dedicated, tenured Private Banking team that proactively identifies opportunities and coordinates delivery across CIBC Wealth Management, Commercial Banking, and Capital Markets across North America. We ensure consistency through in-depth discovery, ongoing reviews, specialist collaboration, and clear accountability via a single lead advisor.

The result is advice and execution that are highly tailored, forward-looking, and anchored in each client’s specific needs—so families can make confident decisions and achieve their goals efficiently.

How do you ensure these values are consistently delivered? What role does collaboration play? Can you share an example that illustrates putting clients first?

We deliver our values consistently by anchoring every relationship in a client-centric team model, supported by experienced, long-tenured Private Bankers who manage a limited number of families. This, together with our ongoing investment in technology and simplification, ensures they are able to focus on the entire family and deliver on our promise of high service level, innovative liquidity solutions and access to the comprehensive CIBC platform across North America. Clients tell us they value our attentiveness and precision, especially during major life transitions—feedback we use to continuously refine our approach.

Collaboration is integral to how we create value. Our Private Bankers are each a cross-bank referral hub, connecting clients to specialists across Financial Planning, CIBC Wood Gundy, Private Investment Counsel, Commercial Banking, and Capital Markets. This integrated model allows us to mobilize the right expertise at the right moment—whether the need is for them and their family personally or for their companies—so clients receive seamless, multi-faceted solutions without having to navigate the bank themselves.

A recent example brings this to life. Our Commercial Banking team had a decade-long relationship with a family-run business in Calgary and introduced the family to Private Banking five years ago to help address personal liquidity requirements. Earlier this year, after selling their business for more than CA$200 million, the family turned to their Private Banker to guide the transition from a business enterprise to a family enterprise. She brought in our Family Enterprise Advisory team to develop a multi-generational framework encompassing tax, estate, and philanthropy planning, and worked with our Asset Management and CIBC Wood Gundy teams to design and implement a tailored investment strategy. The result was a cohesive, values-led plan that delivered timely liquidity, diversified their holdings, established durable family governance, and aligned their wealth with a long-term purpose—an example of our commitment to putting clients first.

What trends are you seeing in private banking, and how is CIBC positioning itself? What challenges do you face, and how are they addressed?

Key trends include demand for innovative liquidity solutions, digital transformation, and holistic wealth management. Clients expect seamless, personalized experiences with access to advanced strategies. We’re responding by investing in AI-driven platforms, expanding advisory capabilities, and deepening cross-bank partnerships.

Challenges such as regulatory complexity and evolving expectations are addressed through ongoing talent development, process simplification, and a commitment to delivering best-in-class advice—supported by consistent, predictable execution in day-to-day service.

How do you see client needs evolving over the next few years?

We’re witnessing three powerful shifts that are reshaping expectations. First, wealth is increasingly concentrating in households with $5MM+ in investable assets—and that segment is growing at a faster pace than other wealth bands. With greater concentration comes greater complexity: more cross-border considerations, multi-entity structures, and a need to balance immediate liquidity with long-term preservation. Clients at this stage in their wealth journey are looking for integrated, bespoke solutions that take into account their unique cash flow, investment goals, risk profile, time horizon and multi-generational goals. That’s why we’re deepening collaboration with our partners in Capital Markets and Commercial Banking to bring institutional-grade capabilities to our clients. Second, digitization has moved from aspirational to core. Clients expect secure, always-on access to their consolidated portfolio, cash flow and credit exposure—plus actionable insights that cut through noise rather than add to it. The demand is for frictionless experiences that combine privacy-by-design, robust authentication, and continuous cyber monitoring with human-in-the-loop judgment. In practice, that means mobile-first tools for rapid decision-making, curated personalized solutions that highlight what truly matters, and Private Bankers who stay close to every family member, regardless of age or geography. Our goal is to have technology enhance, not replace, expert guidance.

Third, multigenerational planning is shifting from transfer mechanics to stewardship. Families are asking, “What happens when the wealth arrives?” The rising generation wants personalization, purpose, and participation—early. Our focus is on building capacity and capability: financial fluency, family governance frameworks, and continuity planning for family enterprises that define roles, accountability, and decision rights. We align structures across jurisdictions to protect legal and tax efficiency, while integrating values such as philanthropy and impact, into policy so that the family’s wealth serves both opportunity and legacy.

Put together, these trends demand a private banking model that is integrated, digitally fluent and cyber-secure, and deeply committed to preparing the next generation to lead. Our vision is to continue evolving as Canada’s destination private bank—delivering innovative solutions, personalized service, and holistic strategies that adapt to our clients’ changing needs.

What advice would you give to entrepreneurs and families looking to build and preserve wealth today? Anything else to share about CIBC’s journey or your leadership philosophy?

Seek trusted, tenured advisors who understand your goals and can provide tailored, forward-looking solutions. Building and preserving wealth requires a deliberate, proactive mindset, regular planning, and access to a diverse suite of banking and investment options.

CIBC’s journey has been defined by client success, innovation, and community impact. As a leader, I focus on developing our teams, enhancing the client and employee experience, building partnerships—internal and external—and deepening relationships through solution-based conversations. Ultimately, our success comes from showing up consistently in the everyday moments that earn long-term trust.

To learn more about CIBC Private Banking or to connect with an advisor, please visit CIBC Private Wealth solutions.