Podcast Summary: The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®

Episode #815: CIBC's Stephanie Leheta on Moving from Silos to Enterprise Scale CX
Date: February 18, 2026
Guest: Stephanie Lojida, Senior Director, Client Experience Strategy at CIBC
Host: Greg Kihlström
Location: Medallia Experience at the Wynn Resort, Las Vegas

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into CIBC’s journey of transforming client experience (CX) from a collection of siloed initiatives into an enterprise-wide, data-driven, and purpose-led function — directly linked to both revenue and employee compensation. Stephanie Lojida shares the bank’s strategies for embedding CX into its operational DNA, the pivotal role of leadership, data integration challenges, robust data governance, and the measurable business results from this transformation.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. CIBC’s Purpose and the Need for Transformation

[02:30–03:22]

• CIBC at a Glance: One of Canada’s “Big Five” banks with 15 million clients and 50,000 employees, serving everything from first-time savers to entrepreneurs.
• Purpose-Driven Banking: "For us, being purpose driven means we strive to understand what matters most to our clients...we focus on being radically simple but genuinely caring.” — Stephanie Lojida [03:17]
• Transformation Trigger: Roughly ten years ago, CIBC realized it had lost sight of its core purpose. The brand and infrastructure felt outdated, and client experience metrics were lagging peers.

2. Translating Purpose into Strategy & Principles

[04:03–06:45]

• CEO as Catalyst: The CEO “set a bold new ambition...to transform our organization into what we call a modern relationship oriented bank.” — Stephanie Lojida [04:15]
• Embedding Purpose: Leadership went beyond a brand refresh to include major investments in front-end/back-end infrastructure and a reset of the CX operating model.
• Enterprise CX Index: Critical decision was to tie a new CX Index to variable compensation for every employee, unifying the organization around client outcomes.

3. Operationalizing Experience Principles

[06:45–08:40]

• Three Principles: Always Professional, Radically Simple, Genuinely Caring
• Transition From “Poster Values”: Embedded the principles across people, process, and technology.
  • CX involvement is now a formal requirement at every project’s outset, including funding gates.
  • CX Index measures across ~20 metrics (ease of use, sentiment, compliance, etc.), ensuring principles are reflected in day-to-day operations and metrics.
• Quote: “We built CX right into our enterprise delivery framework...CX gets involved day one.” — Stephanie Lojida [06:53]

4. Data, Insights, and the “Listen, Learn, Act” Model

[08:40–11:44]

• Massive Data Pipeline: Ingests 20M+ call transcripts/year, complaints, surveys, digital experience metrics.
• Breaking Silos Via Tech Integration: Built connectors linking Medallia (CX platform), CRM, and data lakes.
• Agility in Action: Insights dynamically drive marketing, digital, and frontline actions — e.g., who to contact, where to suppress offers until an issue is resolved.
• Quote: “That’s what really brought our agility to be able to act — taking this data, transforming it into actionable ways, and then bringing it to the frontline.” — Stephanie Lojida [10:59]

5. Concrete Example: Product & Experience Redesign

[11:56–13:57]

• Issue Identified: Surge in complaints from youth transitioning from “youth” to “student” accounts due to automatic fee applications.
• CX in Action: Used journey mapping and human-centered design to launch the “Smart Start” account, seamlessly transitioning users and eliminating friction.
• Impact: 25% drop in complaints, 40% growth in the segment.
• Quote: “If you want to be the bank of choice for the rest of my life…” — Customer insight via feedback, cited by Stephanie Lojida [12:39]

6. Data Governance & Privacy in a Regulated Industry

[16:47–19:25]

• Internal Trust and Integration: Getting buy-in from teams who “believe they own the client or the data.”
• System Integration: APIs, pipelines, harmonization of disparate datasets.
• Privacy Practices: Enterprise risk assessment, involvement from compliance, regulatory, AML, and privacy teams. Opt-in/opt-out and transparency for clients.
• Transparency Drives Trust: “The most critical was absolutely the responsible data governance and client privacy...that thorough evaluation led to the trust and our ability to bring this to life.” — Stephanie Lojida [18:55]

7. Linking Compensation to CX Metrics

[19:25–21:22]

• Bold Move: 25% of variable compensation for 48,000+ employees now tied to the CX index.
• Design Principles: Fairness, accountability, and resistance to gaming built in:
  • ~20 metrics spanning NPS, market share, brand consideration, compliance, etc.
  • Annual review and board approval; targets and weightings updated to conditions.
  • Mix of achievable and “stretch” goals ensures engagement, not sandbagging.
• Quote: “It’s quite a thorough and rigorous process and we do revisit the targets...because it needs to remain relevant but it needs to adapt as well.” — Stephanie Lojida [20:37]

8. Proving Financial Impact and Attribution

[21:22–24:26]

• Impressive Results: $2.3B YoY revenue growth, major dip in client churn.
• Attribution Rigor: Near real-time dashboards, pre/post benchmarking, dedicated data scientists within analytics for unbiased modeling.
• Linkage Modeling: Quantifies business value per “promoter” vs. “detractor.”
• Quote: “Not every organization is going to look at a CX team and think of us as the numbers people. Having an analyst — they poke holes, they’ll challenge me — we’ve built in an enhanced rigor.” — Stephanie Lojida [22:39]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Embedding CX Into Operations:
  “We built CX right into our enterprise delivery framework. What that means is day one, for every new client facing project, CX gets involved.” — Stephanie Lojida [06:53]

• On Truly Listening:
  “We’re ingesting 20 million plus call transcripts a year, all of our complaints, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of surveys, digital interaction, experience metrics. So it is a very robust data ecosystem. But how do you extract the so what out of that to act on?” — Stephanie Lojida [09:49]

• Success Story — Youth Accounts:
  “We facilitated the transition from youth to student...made it a seamless journey and eliminated the fee. When we implemented that, complaints dropped 25%. But even more importantly, growth grew 40%.” — Stephanie Lojida [13:34]

• On Data Privacy:
  “We worked with our partners across the enterprise following our enterprise risk assessment. So we had compliance, regulatory teams, legal, anti money laundering teams, privacy, everybody at the table...” — Stephanie Lojida [18:31]

• Defending ROI to the Board:
  “Having an analyst, I now partner with them, they poke holes, they’ll challenge me. They’ll say, ‘You can’t do it that way.’ And so we've built in an enhanced rigor simply by having that analyst there.” — Stephanie Lojida [22:39]

Key Timestamps

• [02:30] Introduction to CIBC’s client base and purpose-driven banking
• [04:03] Transformation process and CEO’s role in change
• [06:45] Operationalizing experience principles
• [09:34] Building and integrating the CX data ecosystem
• [11:56] Example: Redesigning the youth-to-student experience
• [16:47] Data governance, privacy, and regulatory considerations
• [19:25] Designing the CX-based compensation model
• [21:22] Financial impact and challenges of attribution
• [24:43] Key personal takeaways from Medallia Experience event
• [25:24] Stephanie’s approach to staying agile and ongoing learning

Stephanie Lojida’s Approach to Staying Agile

[25:24]

• Microlearning: Prefers short podcasts, quick bursts of ideas over deep dives
• Community learning: Values knowledge-sharing and learning from peers, e.g., at industry events
  • “Microlearning...just like at the Leadership Forum yesterday, learning from others really helps me to stay relevant and curious and excited and agile.” — Stephanie Lojida [26:09]

Conclusion

Stephanie Lojida’s appearance highlights how an institution as complex as CIBC can break through functional silos and legacy mindsets by aligning data, people, and incentives behind a client-centric vision. The discussion offers actionable insights into stakeholder engagement, robust data governance, and weaving CX into the very fabric of large-scale organizations.

For further details on CIBC’s transformation and Stephanie’s work, refer to the show notes.