The boardroom lights dimmed as Karen Maidment stepped away from the podium. The audience—a mix of executives, finance students, and industry veterans—erupted in applause. As I watched from the back row of this Canadian Club of Toronto event, I couldn’t help but reflect on how dramatically the role of Chief Financial Officer has evolved since Maidment first took the financial helm at Bank of Montreal two decades ago.
Once relegated to number-crunching and backward-looking reports, today’s CFOs have emerged as strategic architects of corporate transformation. Few exemplify this shift better than Maidment, whose journey from accountant to one of Canada’s most influential corporate directors offers a masterclass in modern financial leadership.
“The CFO position has completely transformed,” Maidment told me during a conversation after her presentation. “We’ve moved from being scorekeepers to becoming key strategic partners who help shape where companies are heading.”
This evolution isn’t merely semantic. When Maidment became CFO of BMO Financial Group in 2003, the position still largely involved ensuring accurate financial reporting and managing risk. By the time she left in 2009, she had redefined what a financial leader could accomplish in a major Canadian institution.
Her six-year tenure at BMO coincided with the early tremors of what would become the 2008 financial crisis. While many financial institutions were caught flat-footed, BMO weathered the storm relatively well, thanks partly to Maidment’s conservative approach to risk management and capital allocation.
“We were making tough decisions about pulling back from certain markets when others were still expanding,” she explained. “Sometimes the most important role of a CFO is to be the voice of restraint when exuberance takes over.”
This ability to balance growth ambitions with prudent financial management became Maidment’s signature. After BMO, she translated this balanced approach to boardrooms across North America, serving on the boards of TD Bank Group, TransAlta Corporation, and perhaps most notably, as a director at BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager.
The data backs up this shift in the CFO role that Maidment pioneered. According to a recent McKinsey survey, 41 percent of CFOs now spend the majority of their time on strategic leadership rather than traditional finance activities. For women in finance, this evolution has particular significance.
When Maidment began her career, finance departments were heavily male-dominated, especially at the executive level. The path from controller to CFO was neither clear nor easy for women. Statistics Canada data shows that while progress has been made, women still hold fewer than 20 percent of CFO positions at Canada’s largest companies.
“I never wanted to be seen as the ‘woman CFO,'” Maidment reflects. “I wanted to be recognized as the best possible financial leader who happened to be a woman. But I also recognized my responsibility to ensure other women could see what was possible.”
Her approach to mentorship reflects this philosophy. Rather than creating women-only programs, she focused on system-wide changes to how financial talent is developed. At BMO, she implemented structured rotation programs that gave promising finance professionals exposure to different parts of the business—something that particularly benefited women who might otherwise have been overlooked for stretch assignments.
What makes Maidment’s leadership style distinctive is her emphasis on communication. Traditional CFOs often spoke in the dense language of financial statements, accessible only to those with specialized training. Maidment pioneered a more transparent approach.
“Financial information is only valuable when people understand what it means for decision-making,” she noted. “I spent as much time translating financial insights into actionable business recommendations as I did analyzing the numbers themselves.”
This communication-focused approach helped bridge the historical divide between finance and other business functions. Under Maidment’s leadership, BMO’s finance team became known for partnering with business units rather than simply monitoring them.
Her influence extends beyond individual institutions. Through board positions at the CD Howe Institute and her past role as chair of the Financial Executives International Canada, Maidment has shaped conversations about financial policy and governance standards across the country.
The pandemic further accelerated the transformation of the CFO role that Maidment helped initiate. When COVID-19 hit, CFOs suddenly needed to manage unprecedented uncertainty while maintaining financial stability. Many found themselves leading operational decisions about remote work and supply chain resilience—areas traditionally outside the finance department’s purview.
“The pandemic confirmed what some of us had been saying for years,” Maidment observed during a recent Financial Post interview. “Financial leadership isn’t just about managing what’s on the balance sheet—it’s about understanding how financial decisions affect every aspect of the business and broader society.”
Young financial professionals entering the field today face a radically different landscape than Maidment did. Technical accounting skills remain important, but they’re now table stakes rather than differentiators. The CFOs following in Maidment’s footsteps need technological fluency, strategic vision, and emotional intelligence.
At the University of Waterloo’s School of Accounting and Finance, where Maidment has been a guest lecturer, curriculum has evolved to reflect these changes. Students now take courses in data analytics and strategic decision-making alongside traditional accounting.
“Karen was ahead of her time in recognizing that technical expertise alone wasn’t enough,” says James Barnett, Director of the Master of Accounting program at Waterloo. “She understood that finance leaders need to be business leaders first, finance experts second.”
For Canadian companies navigating today’s complex economic environment—from interest rate fluctuations to ESG pressures and AI transformation—the strategic CFO model that Maidment helped establish has become indispensable.
As our conversation concluded, Maidment offered a final reflection that captures her legacy: “The best financial leaders don’t just tell you where you’ve been. They help you understand where you are and guide you toward where you need to go.”
For a generation of finance professionals who have followed her path, Karen Maidment didn’t just transform the role of CFO—she redefined what’s possible when finance becomes a true partner in business leadership.
