Larry Tomei
Larry Tomei likes to do business the way his father ran a barber shop for 46 years.
"Every client is important. Every client matters," he says. "I learned at an early age from my dad that if you have the right team and you put your clients first and do everything you can to make them happy, then everything else takes care of itself."
Mr. Tomei graduated from York University's Schulich School of Business with a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Master of Business Administration in 1994. He immediately joined CIBC as a product manager of mutual funds.
"When I did my education I had a focus on finance and a focus on marketing and when I saw this role, it was the perfect balance. Mutual funds were just becoming mainstream and it had the finance piece but it was also a lot about the marketing and I fell in love with it."
In 1995 CIBC Mutual Funds had negative net sales and was a lagging performer in the industry. By 2004, Mr. Tomei and his team had succeeded in making CIBC one of the largest mutual fund companies in Canada, generating $1.4-billion in net sales, and ranking 6th in the industry.
"CIBC has been my home from day one," says Mr. Tomei who even met his wife of 10 years, Kim, at CIBC when she was a salesperson. They now have two children, a five-year-old daughter and an eight-year-old son.
Mr. Tomei's community work includes sitting on the foundation board of Humber River hospital.
"That's always been my hospital," he says. "I wanted something that I had a personal connection to. Both of my kids were born there, and I wanted to give something back to that hospital."
Mr. Tomei says he continues to draw heavily from an extensive family network. He still lives in Woodbridge, a suburb in the city of Vaughan, north of Toronto, where his parents settled after emigrating from Italy, "with nothing."
And just as his father said every customer had to leave the shop with a great haircut, Mr. Tomei says his goal is to ensure every client leaves CIBC, "with a great experience."
"It doesn't matter what kind of business it is. If you make sure you have the best employees possible and focus on clients, then you're going to be successful."
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