Paula Cruickshank

Paula is Senior Vice President, Ontario, and Digital Transformation Lead. She oversees BDC’s financing and consulting services across that province, while also ensuring digital investment decisions and strategies for segmentation, omni-channel and client teams are aligned and continue to serve BDC’s clients.

Paula brings more than 20 years of experience in the banking industry to these roles, including most recently as BDC’s Senior Vice President, British Columbia and North, successfully growing the bank’s financing and consulting services throughout that region.

She joined BDC in 2009 as Vice President, Securitization, taking over the management of the Canadian Secured Credit Facility, a $12 billion program by the Government of Canada to help restart the asset-backed securities market following the 2007–2009 financial crisis. She 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.

Paula holds an International MBA from the Schulich School of Business and an LL.M in Banking and Financial Institutions from Osgoode Hall Law School.