Sharon O’Sullivan

Global Head of Technology Research & Innovation, Enterprise Architecture and Innovation, BMO

Sharon O’Sullivan is currently the Head of Technology Research & Innovation for BMO Financial Group. Founded in Montreal and headquartered in Toronto, with over CAD$1 trillion in assets, BMO is one of the ten largest banks in North America. As an industry-leading digital executive for global financial institutions for the past 20 years, Sharon knows well that technology alone cannot improve bottom lines and build organizational agility. As part of her current mandate, Sharon leads the bank’s digital innovation strategy and establishes collaborative, internal, and external ecosystems that drive research, experimentation, and the adoption of disruptive technologies for growth (open banking, blockchain, web3, and more). Sharon joined BMO in 2019 after leading digital transformation at CIBC for over 19 years.

A well-regarded industry thought leader on Digital Transformation, Innovation, Data & Analytics, Sharon is a sought-after speaker on strategy and governance topics in the financial sector and serves on the advisory board of several technology innovation-focused organizations, including the Waterloo Artificial Intelligence Institute and the University of Toronto – The Entrepreneurship Hatchery.

Beyond finance and technology, Sharon is also active in the healthcare sector, lending her expertise to a public-private healthcare partnership providing direct mental health support to some of the most vulnerable in our community.

Sharon holds an MBA from the Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto and a Global Executive MBA with a concentration in Corporate Finance, Mergers and Acquisitions from SDA Bocconi School of Business in Milan.