Becomes first Canadian bank to join global effort focused on putting disability on the leadership agenda

TORONTO, Dec. 3, 2019 /CNW/ - CIBC today announced its participation in The Valuable 500, an international initiative striving to place disability on the business agenda. CIBC is the first Canadian bank to join the campaign dedicated to unlocking the business, social and economic value of people living with disabilities around the world.

"We're focused on continuing to level the playing field and remove barriers to ensure our team members can all excel and contribute to helping our clients achieve their goals," said Victor G. Dodig, CIBC President and Chief Executive Officer. "The future competitiveness of our country depends on engaging all of our intellectual capital, and enabling more persons with disabilities to be full participants in our economy is not just a positive gesture, it's good for businesses and for Canadian economic growth. Our commitment to The Valuable 500 reflects the importance we place on affecting meaningful change in our business and the communities around us by fully embracing and promoting inclusion."

With this announcement, CIBC affirms its ongoing commitment to ensure 8 to 9 per cent of its annual hires are persons with disabilities. This achievement also reflects the importance of relationships CIBC has formed with organizations that include Specialisterne and Lime Connect that specialize in connecting employers with talented candidates living with disabilities.

According to The World Bank, more than 1.3 billion people around the world live with some form of disability. To address this, The Valuable 500 launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2019. Their goal has been to sign 500 national and multinational, private sector corporations and unite them to serve as role models for change on this vital issue. To date, 170 global businesses from over twenty countries have signed up.

"Financial inclusion is an essential part of ensuring we are reaching a point where those with disabilities are included fully into our society," said Caroline Casey, Founder, The Valuable 500. "It is fantastic CIBC has joined The Valuable 500 and made the commitment to hire persons with disabilities on an annual basis. We are proud the Valuable 500 is a global movement, with businesses from over 20 countries signed up. Leading businesses around the world are recognizing the value of the 1.3 billion."

In addition, earlier this month, CIBC added its support to #DearEverybody, a national movement led by Holland Bloorview to end stigma and challenge biases surrounding disability which includes addressing the lack of representation of persons with disabilities in advertising and media. CIBC's commitment will give more visibility to the 22 per cent of Canadians that identify as living with a disability by ensuring that they are represented in the casting decisions for the bank's marketing and advertising campaigns.

About CIBC
CIBC is a leading Canadian-based global financial institution with 10 million personal banking, business, public sector and institutional clients. Across Personal and Small Business Banking, Commercial Banking and Wealth Management, and Capital Markets businesses, CIBC offers a full range of advice, solutions and services through its leading digital banking network, and locations across Canada, in the United States and around the world. Ongoing news releases and more information about CIBC can be found at www.cibc.com/en/about-cibc/media-centre.html.

About Valuable
The Valuable 500 campaign seeks to tackle the trend for businesses to claim they are diverse, but exclude disability from their definition of diversity, following research by EY commissioned by #valuable found disability is still woefully absent from the majority of board level discussions globally - with the majority (56%) of global senior executives rarely or never discussing disability on their leadership agendas. Today, over one billion people across the world live with some form of disability - 15% of the global population, or 1 in 7 people - but their value is routinely ignored by business, equivalent to disregarding a potential market the size of US, Brazil, Indonesia and Pakistan combined. Along with their friends, families and communities, the one billion disabled people worldwide also hold a disposable annual income of $8 trillion a year, equating to an opportunity that business cannot afford to ignore. Of those one billion, 80% of disabilities are acquired later life, and our ageing global population means the prevalence of disability is on the rise. #valuable is a catalyst for an inclusion revolution that exists to position disability equally on the global business leadership agenda. It is spearheaded by award-winning activist, social entrepreneur and Binc founder Caroline Casey, who is registered blind. To apply to be a Valuable 500 business, please visit thevaluable500.com.

SOURCE CIBC

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