Head of CIBC’s innovation banking arm departs

Open this photo in gallery:

The head of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce’s CM-T burgeoning innovation banking unit, Mark McQueen, is leaving the bank.

Mr. McQueen announced his plans to step down as president and executive managing director of CIBC Innovation Banking on his personal blog on Thursday. He has been at the bank for five years, and wrote that “it’s the appropriate time to chart my next adventure.”

“I’m at the right age to still have time for one more great career, and I’m old enough to know what to do this time,” Mr. McQueen said in an interview.

He said he has not decided what he will do next, but is interested in opportunities that could include an entrepreneurial venture, a corporate role or a public-service oriented position. CIBC has not yet revealed who will succeed him at the helm of CIBC Innovation Banking.

Mr. McQueen joined CIBC in 2018 through the bank’s acquisition of Wellington Financial, a Toronto-based specialty finance firm he led that specialized in backing early- and mid-stage technology companies through a $300-million fund.

Wellington served as a cornerstone for the launch of CIBC Innovation Banking, a revamped tech banking division that has ramped up the pace of its investments. It has added key bankers and helped spur rivals to bulk up their own tech banking services – for example, California-based Silicon Valley Bank set up shop in Canada, and Royal Bank of Canada has expanded and merged its tech banking and venture units to create its RBCx platform.

In recent years, CIBC capitalized on a boom for technology companies that attracted ballooning investments and soaring valuations. Over a three-year span, CIBC Innovation Banking expanded its loan book from $400-million to $2.9-billion and boosted profits before taxes from $12-million to $59-million, according to a presentation to investors last year. It then set a target to triple that profit-before-taxes number by 2025.

But that target was set just before a sharp downturn in tech began late in 2021. Since then, rising interest rates and high inflation have brought sky-high valuations crashing back down and created a drumbeat of layoffs as companies cut costs to conserve cash.

Mr. McQueen said in his blog that CIBC’s innovation unit “committed more than $10-billion in financing” to startups and growth companies over five years.