BMO Announces 2022 Celebrating Women Grant Program Recipients to Help U.S. Women-owned Businesses Make Progress

• A total of eight grants at $10,000 each have been awarded to women-owned businesses
• This year's grant program focuses on supporting women-owned businesses that have new products and services, are expanding to new markets and have new hiring plans

CHICAGO, March 15, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - BMO, in collaboration with Deloitte*, announced today the 2022 recipients of its BMO Celebrating Women Grant Program to help women-owned businesses make real financial progress. This year, BMO awarded a total of $80,000 in grants to support the high-level growth plans of eight women-owned business in the United States.

The 2022 BMO Celebrating Women Grant Program U.S. recipients are below:

• Beth Templin, HouseFit Physical Therapy and Fitness (St. Louis, MO)
• Christene Kamberis, Intentional Synergy, LLC (Burlington, WI)
• Sara Edwards, Interpersonal Therapy, LLC (Middleton, WI)
• Lisa Marsh, MsP'sGFree Inc. (Chicago, IL)
• Candance Chow & Melanie Wright, NextGroup, LLC (Evanston, IL)
• Artika Tyner, Planting People Growing Justice Press and Bookstore (St. Paul, MN)
• Teresa Ging, Sugar Bliss, LLC (Chicago, IL)
• Letty Velez, Velez Global Enterprises (Lockport, IL)

"These inspiring women business owners have shown incredible resilience and innovation during challenging times, from growing their teams and entering new markets to launching new products and services," said Erminia (Ernie) Johannson, Group Head, North American Personal and Business Banking at BMO. "Our commitment to removing barriers to women's financial progress is at the core of BMO's Celebrating Women Grant Program and a driving force behind our Purpose to Boldly Grow the Good in business and life. Congratulations to this year's recipients."

"Deloitte is proud to work with BMO to support women-led businesses, and we extend our enthusiastic congratulations to the recipients of this year's BMO Celebrating Women Grant Program," said Kathy Scherer, Central Region Market Leader and Chicago Managing Partner, Deloitte LLP. "Deloitte recognizes the importance of increasing social and economic mobility, including for those facing the greatest barriers to equity and prosperity. We are inspired by this group of impactful women business leaders who are making a difference in their communities and beyond."

BMO is committed to supporting the advancement of women both within the bank and beyond, including through: 

• $1.2 million in funding to SheEO – a not-for-profit company which offers financial support to businesses led by women and non-binary people. BMO's financial commitment allowed SheEO to fund all 2021 venture applicant companies.
• BMO Empower 2.0 – a series of long-term commitments to advance inclusive economic recovery and address barriers faced by minority businesses, communities and families in the United States. The plan builds upon the bank's previous $5 billion EMpower commitment to which the bank exceeded its goals early.
• As part of EMpower, announced $300 million for Women in Business and BMO for Black and Latinx Businesses to provide better access to affordable credit lending, meaningful partnerships, resources and tools to create more opportunity for growth and real financial progress.
• WMNfintech program – a collaboration between BMO and 1871, designed for women-led fintech start-ups that create services or solutions for the financial sector, offer insights and advice to customers, or help identify customer needs. The program provides women founders with curriculum and guidance from industry experts and an opportunity to pitch venture capital investors for feedback, mentoring, continued connections, and potential for funding.
• Set new diversity goals for senior leader and executive roles through its Zero Barriers to Inclusion 2025 strategy, including maintaining its leadership in gender diversity with at least 40 percent of senior leadership roles filled by employees who identify as women.

In addition to the grants, BMO is offering a comprehensive package to all BMO Celebrating Women Grant recipients that includes an invitation to an education series focused on business growth, a one-year membership with one of the bank's partner advisory boards, a feature on bmo.com/women and BMO social channels, as well as a BMO Celebrating Women Grant Recipient social badge.

To learn more about BMO Celebrating Women, visit bmo.com/women and join the social conversation using #WomenInBusiness.

Serving customers for 200 years and counting, BMO is a highly diversified financial services provider - the 8th largest bank, by assets, in North America. With total assets of $1.15 trillion as of January 31, 2023, and a team of diverse and highly engaged employees, BMO provides a broad range of personal and commercial banking, wealth management and investment banking products and services to 12 million customers and conducts business through three operating groups: Personal and Commercial Banking, BMO Wealth Management and BMO Capital Markets.

*Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of their legal structure.

SOURCE BMO Financial Group