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B.K. MILNE: I've been with CIBC about 20 years. I joined in 1998. I have a CFA. I also have an interest in finance and a background in finance, did finance in university, and I enjoy working with individuals. The retail brokerage environment was the perfect combination of those two skills. Probably the biggest thing that we do for clients is eliminate the stress and emotion around financial decision making. It is a very stressful environment, it's fast-moving, significant outcomes, significant risk and significant opportunities, so we simplify that for them.

Part of the trick, I think is to understand what their needs really are and look through what they're saying to what they're really trying to get at, build the bridge between them and the market and them in a current environment to make sure that they're successful. One of the advantages of being part of the CIBC family is we can go and seek out knowledge and experience where we don't have the knowledge or experience. As the business evolves, doing more and more financial planning. As tax and everything else gets more and more complicated, how do we bring in a skill set that integrates those. We go out and learn or we could bring somebody who has knowledge and experience.

There is a big step between just having knowledge and actually having knowledge and experience and actually having applied it. It's even more powerful if you've applied it to your own family or your own situation. An example of that would be Bruce, where Bruce knows business, and we brought Bruce in back in 2008 to help run the business and structure the business.

 

BRUCE SZARKA: When I joined the Forge team, I was given the mandate to bring my experience as a client and provide the client perspective so that we could design and deliver a more valuable client experience. The thing I value most about working with our clients is

developing a trusted relationship. I think it's assumed that we understand the technical aspects of what we do, i.e. how the market place works, how we structure their portfolios, but I think that it's important that we are able to develop a relationship where the client trusts what we do and trusts how we're going to manage their wealth.

Our existing clients benefit from a trusted relationship with an experienced team and a vast CIBC network. When you become our client, you should expect nothing less.

 

B.K MILNE: Probably what I love most about my job is solving client's problems and the satisfaction that comes from seeing them go from a position of anxiety and stress to a position where that anxiety and stress has been removed. We do that quite regularly and it's highly rewarding.