Sharon Haward-Laird

Sharon Haward-Laird is General Counsel of BMO Financial Group and leads the bank’s legal and regulatory compliance, sustainability and procurement groups. She is responsible for corporate governance, banking regulation and supervision, and litigation. She also oversees the bank’s ethics, customer complaint appeals and investigations practices and chairs the enterprise regulatory and reputation risk committees. She is a member of BMO’s Executive Committee and serves as executive sponsor for sustainability, diversity, equity and inclusion, the BMO for Women program, and digital currency and is Chair of the BMO Climate Institute.

Since joining BMO in 2000, Sharon has held senior roles across the bank’s corporate functions and operating groups, including Deputy General Counsel, Capital Markets, Head of Corporate Communications, Government and Investor Relations and Head, North American Treasury & Payment Solutions.

Sharon is on the Board of Directors of the CAMH Foundation, which enables leading-edge research, care and education at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Canada's largest mental health teaching hospital and one of the world's leading research centres in its field. She is also on the Board of CivicAction Leadership Foundation, which is dedicated to building the collective leadership capacity of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area and is a member of the United Way Greater Toronto 2024 Community Campaign Cabinet. Sharon is a passionate advocate for open dialogue about mental health and women’s issues and frequently hosts client and employee discussions on these topics.

Sharon obtained her Bachelor of Laws from the University of Toronto and practised commercial litigation at Torys LLP. She has been a member of the board of directors of Moneris Corporation and was Vice Chair of Interac Corporation. In 2019 and 2020, American Banker named Sharon one of the Most Powerful Women to Watch.