Paula Cruickshank

Paula has held the role of Senior Vice President, Ontario, since June 2020, overseeing BDC’s financing and consulting services across the 33 Business Centres in the province.

Paula has more than 25 years of banking industry experience.

Prior to her current role in Ontario, she held the role of Senior Vice President, British Columbia and North, from 2017 to 2020, where she successfully grew the bank’s financing and consulting services throughout that region.

In terms of operational responsibilities, most recently Paula was Digital Transformation Lead. She worked to ensure that digital investment decisions, segmentation strategies, and omni-channel and client teams continued to deliver value to BDC’s clients. This responsibility built on her experience running the Virtual Bank from 2019 to 2020.

She joined BDC in 2009 as Vice President, Securitization, taking over the management of the Canadian Secured Credit Facility, a $12-billion Government of Canada program to help restart the asset-backed securities market following the 2007-2009 financial crisis. Paula also launched BDC’s Funding Platform for Independent Lenders (F-PIL) to provide capital to smaller financing and leasing companies. In 2015, she assumed responsibility for both Syndicated Financing and Indirect Financing (formerly Securitization), rebranding the unit as Wholesale Financing in June 2016. Before joining BDC, Paula spent more than 11 years with the Scotiabank Group, where she gained broad experience in Structured Finance and Corporate Finance.

In 2023, Paula was recognized by Women We Admire as one of the Top 50 Women Leaders of Toronto. She has been a board member of Futurpreneur since 2020. She holds an International MBA from the Schulich School of Business and an LLM in Banking and Financial Institutions from Osgoode Hall Law School.