Sonya Kunkel is the Head of Enterprise Purpose & Customer Experience at BMO Financial Group. Sonya is responsible for the enterprise effort to integrate Purpose into BMO’s strategy, culture and brand by ensuring our BMO’s enterprise tools, frameworks and behaviours align to our Purpose; and guiding the creation of enterprise enables to reinforce Purpose in our culture. Most recently, in January 2020, Sonya’s mandate grew to include leading Marketing Sponsorships across the bank.
Since joining Marketing & Strategy in 2017, Sonya, with her team and LOB partners lead the revamp of how BMO captures the voice of the customer and measures customer loyalty, all while making it simpler, cheaper, and more reliable.
Prior to this most recent appointment, she was Chief Inclusion Officer and Vice President, People Strategies & Insights, BMO Financial Group. She had enterprise-wide responsibility (Canada & U.S.) for key enterprise people strategies, including people strategy planning, diversity and inclusion, and employee insights and engagement.
Sonya joined BMO in 2011 as Director, Diversity and Inclusion, following a decade of research and consulting where she specialized in understanding the experiences of women, visible minorities, and Aboriginal peoples, particularly their experiences in the workplace.
Formerly Vice-President, Public Affairs and Business Development for Environics Research Group, she led Environics Institute’s 2010 Urban Aboriginal Peoples Study (uaps.ca).
She served as Senior Director of Catalyst (2001-2007), where she worked with former President Susan Black to build the Catalyst Canada office. Here, she held responsibility for Catalyst Canada’s Advisory Services and key research streams.
Sonya has an undergraduate degree in Peace and Conflict Studies, an M.A. in Political Economy and an MBA in Strategic Management from the Schulich School of Business.