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But the bank’s bicentennial isn’t the only milestone that’s approaching. In November, shortly before BMO’s official anniversary, Downe will be retiring, after more than three decades with the company, 10 of them at the helm.

“Having worked here for almost 35 years, I’ve seen lots of change, and a tremendous amount of growth,” he says, noting the timing of his departure with the bicentennial was not deliberate. “It’s a very nice way to finish what will be a long career in banking. Just a reflection that history matters, and it matters because it informs the future.”

For Downe, the last of the cohort to lead Canada’s big banks through the financial crisis, bringing the lessons of past to bear on the future will be one of his final tasks as chief executive, as he helps to chart a course for his successor, Darryl White.

“The conversation that we have been having now is that history matters, because there are analogs that you can look to,” Downe says. “Darryl has been a banker for almost three decades. He has a very strong sense of how the history of the Bank of Montreal has operated.”

While Downe sees big themes — such as the digitization of knowledge, the impact of globalization on trade and aging demographics — affecting the bank in the years to come, he is pragmatic when it comes to the risks that financial institutions face on a continuous basis.

Having worked here for almost 35 years, I've seen lots of change, and a tremendous amount of growth Bill Downe, CEO, Bank of Montreal

Photo by m Ross for Postmedia News

“What are the things that have kept me up at night? They aren’t the individual event…. If you try to conduct yourself worrying about will housing prices be the next major bubble disruption, or the price of crude oil … you would be frozen in your tracks. What good risk management does is it handicaps the probabilities and then says, worst-case, what are the defences we have? Because we can’t operate the bank with the assumption that five really bad things are going to happen.”