Sonya Kunkel
Head, Loyalty & Sponsorship Marketing
Speaker Bio
Sonya Kunkel is the Head of Loyalty & Sponsorship Marketing at the Bank of Montreal. In this capacity, Sonya’s scope is two-fold. She oversees the vision for BMO’s voice-of-customer insights and loyalty platform along with the company’s multi-national sponsorships portfolio that collectively drives brand equity, and acquisition and delivers on the bank’s social impact agenda.
Prior to joining the Marketing & Strategy group in 2017, she was Chief Inclusion Officer and Vice President, People Strategies & Insights, BMO Financial Group. She had enterprise-wide responsibility (Canada & U.S.) for key enterprise people strategies, including people strategy planning, diversity and inclusion, and employee insights and engagement.
Sonya joined BMO in 2011 as Director, Diversity and Inclusion, following a decade of research and consulting where she specialized in understanding the experiences of women, visible minorities, and Aboriginal peoples, particularly their experiences in the workplace.
Formerly Vice-President, Public Affairs and Business Development for Environics Research Group, she led Environics Institute’s 2010 Urban Aboriginal Peoples Study (uaps.ca).She served as Senior Director of Catalyst (2001-2007), where she worked with former President Susan Black to build the Catalyst Canada office. Here, she held responsibility for Catalyst Canada’s Advisory Services and key research streams.
Sonya has an undergraduate degree in Peace and Conflict Studies, an M.A. in Political Economy and an MBA in Strategic Management from the Schulich School of Business.