Brendan P. Keegan Keynotes CIBC Commercial Banking North American Leadership Conference on Accelerating Pace and Defining Hyper Growth

Six-time CEO and bestselling author delivers his fourth CIBC keynote of 2026, bringing motorsport strategy to life as a practical acceleration playbook for commercial banking leaders across North America.

Brendan P. Keegan, founder, Chairman and CEO of bFEARLESS Ventures, delivered a keynote address at CIBC’s Commercial Banking North American Leadership Conference as a guest speaker for Susan Rimmer, Senior Executive Vice-President and Group Head, Commercial Banking, and her leadership team. The conference brought together CIBC’s commercial banking leaders from across North America to focus on accelerating growth, deepening client relationships, and strengthening connectivity across the bank’s platform.

Keegan’s presentation, themed “Accelerating Our Pace,” drew on his 35-year career as a transformation and growth CEO. He connected motorsport strategy to practical leadership lessons and encouraged leaders to continue building a distinctive, client-first approach to winning and deepening relationships in a competitive commercial banking market. The keynote marks Keegan’s fourth engagement with CIBC in 2026, following his keynote at an investor conference, keynote at the CIBC Capital Markets Inaugural Global CIB Summit in Detroit in June and a town hall for the CIBC US Capital Markets team. Keegan’s relationship with CIBC spans over a decade as both a client and trusted advisor, reinforcing the connectivity and client-first culture that has become a hallmark of the institution.

“CIBC’s Commercial Banking team under Susan Rimmer’s leadership is pretty special — top shelf across North America,” Keegan said. “As a long-time client from my days at Merchants Fleet to being a client today with bFEARLESS Exotics, I have always enjoyed the pace and execution behind CIBC’s visionary leadership, and it’s only picking up the pace under Harry Culham’s leadership.”

Keegan outlined the Dare to Disrupt Transformational Playbook built on eight strategic pillars — Leadership, Culture, People, Systems, IQ, EQ, Flexibility, and Fearlessness — and shared the Merchants Fleet case study, where he led the company from 8th in the industry with a $122 million valuation to 4th with a billion-dollar-plus valuation, growing the top line from $500 million to $2.7 billion and the bottom line from $8 million to $186 million. His central message to the room: promise three things to your client and be ridiculously relentless about it — Service, Flexibility, and Innovation. Rimmer noted in her remarks following the conference, “We focused on how we can continue to support clients as they navigate growth, with the right advice, insights, and connections across our North American business. Thank you to Brendan for joining us as a special guest to share perspective on accelerating our pace.”

Keegan is the author of the Wall Street Journal & Amazon Bestsellers The FUD Factor and Dare to Disrupt. His FEARLESS LEADERSHIP newsletter reaches more than 150,000 subscribers, and The Fearless Experience podcast has attracted over two million listeners worldwide.