CHRIS SEIB, Senior Private Banker, BMO Private Wealth, Calgary, Alberta
CHRIS SEIB
"The importance of having a plan that protects everyone behind you is probably more important than the plan you've got in place to protect yourself."
Nearly three decades ago, a junior hockey injury pulled Chris Seib off his job building a gas plant near Three Hills, Alberta. Unable to do physical work, he did what any young job seekers did at the time: he started faxing out résumés. One landed on the desk of a Bank of Montreal Branch Manager who happened to be his best friend's uncle.
"He ended up giving me a job as a teller," says Chris. "I started right at ground roots in the bank."
That faxed resume turned into a 28-year career at BMO. Today, Chris is a Senior Private Banker with BMO Private Wealth in Calgary, working with business owners, medical and dental professionals, and C-suite executives on everything from multimillion-dollar financing to family wealth and succession planning. But the values that shape how he works took root long before he ever stood behind a teller's wicket.
Chris grew up on a farm near Camrose, Alberta. His family owned a farm, but eventually the volatility of farming lost out to a more consistent paying gig in the oil and gas sector for his father. When he was 14, the family moved to Carstairs, a town 48 kilometres north of Calgary. “Moving to Carstairs, with its 1,200 people at the time, felt like moving into a big city," explains Chris. But the rules of small-town life accompanied him. "When people needed help, there was always someone in the community willing to step up, whether that meant getting a crop off the field or simply helping out a neighbor,” he says. “That resonates with me now, and I think I’m a team player largely because of the way I grew up and the communities I grew up in."
After earning a business administration diploma in marketing at SAIT, Chris completed his Bachelor of Management degree through the University of Lethbridge's Calgary campus while working full-time at the bank, taking courses on evenings and weekends. Within about a year, he had moved from the branch into commercial banking, where he would spend the next 18 or so years working with business owners in cash management, small business lending, mid-market lending, corporate finance, and risk management.
That last piece is one of his quiet advantages. "I've adjudicated multimillion-dollar deals with my signature on them," he says. "When I go to my credit partners advocating for a client, there's a lot of trust that I've already mitigated the risks associated with the file. I've been on the other side of the table. I understand risk appetite well."
The result is credibility inside the institution, and that credibility translates directly into results for clients. "When a client comes to me, it's not like they're coming to someone who's brand new to BMO and still trying to build their brand," says Chris. "I've got a very solid brand here within the organization, and it helps me get things done for people."
About eight years ago, Chris moved into wealth management, overseeing the private banking line of business for the Prairies region. The role encompassed dotted-line leadership of 20 to 25 private bankers, which he calls "the best of both worlds." He got to coach, mentor, and weigh in on performance without the administrative noise. But after several years in leadership roles, he missed the clients. When a senior private banker on his team made the decision to retire, Chris put up his hand.
"It felt like it was time to get back into a client-facing role, where you manage your own calendar and, in a sense, you are managing your own business," he says.
Three and a half years later, he's working with many of the same people he served in commercial banking, just from a different angle. "If you're a widget manufacturer, I used to work with the business, usually with the controller or the CFO, on operating lines or buying a building," he explains. "Now I'm working with the business owner who's accumulated the wealth and now has to figure out how they're going to sell their business or transition it to their children. We help formulate a plan for the wealth event."
BMO Private Wealth brings together BMO Nesbitt Burns and BMO Private Banking, and Chris describes it the way he would to a client: three pillars, consisting of private banking, investment management, and trust and estate services, with specialists from areas such as succession planning, insurance, and tax planning brought in as needed. Chris sits on the banking side, managing both sides of a client's balance sheet.
That can mean helping a family finance a recreational property or managing short-term money in GICs and term investments. It can also mean moving quickly when opportunity knocks. "A client might say, 'I've got an investment opportunity, how do I unlock some capital to make it possible?” BMO's private banking offering includes specialized financing through personal holding companies, life insurance or investment holdings, and Chris's years in lending mean he knows how to structure those solutions.
"In many client wealth planning scenarios I would act as the quarterback," he says, "but I'm not the expert in every single silo we have to tackle."
After decades in Calgary's BMO community, Chris knows the firm's investment advisors, investment counselors and wealth specialists well enough to match each client with the right one. "It's not always about dollars and cents. Sometimes it's fit, personality, values," he says. "If I can gain a client's confidence and introduce the right partners, it’s what a win really looks like."
For business owners who are new to BMO, the win can double. "I worked in pretty much all the tiers of commercial banking, so I can identify opportunities on both sides of the business and bring the right people in."
On the personal banking side, sitting in on family meetings as a private banker changed how Chris thinks about planning. "A person is always planning for the immediacy of themselves and their spouse, and things can happen very quickly," he says. "The importance of the plan isn't necessarily for the individual. It's for their loved ones and the people they would leave behind.
"He has seen what happens when that plan doesn't exist. "It can leave a very nasty mess for somebody else to manage, and it can put a lot of undue stress on the family structure," he says.
The hardest part, he admits, isn't the planning itself. It's getting started. "We have so many meetings where the client says, 'This is a big eye-opener for me. I really want to get moving.' And six months later, you're still waiting," Chris says. "They're healthy, they're invincible, they've got all the money they need. Everything's great, right? Until it's not."
Despite the financing structures and balance sheets, Chris insists the job is fundamentally about people. "There's a human element to everything we do that carries just as much weight as the financial element does, or more." It's also why he refuses to apply a one-size-fits-all approach: every family, business, and situation is different, and the solution should be tailored to fit.
That philosophy extends to the colleagues behind the scenes. Chris credits much of his success to what he calls a strong internal brand, built by consistently showing appreciation to the partners and teams who support him. "A thank-you or simple show of appreciation to those who contribute to your success goes a long way," he says. "People will want to work with you and for you."
It's a lesson that sounds a lot like Carstairs. "In Alberta specifically, I think there's a certain loyalty to someone who grew up here, spent time in small communities, and has a value base that might be a little bit different," he says.
Home is a busy place. Chris's wife is also a commercial banker with BMO. "It's a blessing and a curse," he jokes. "We work in the same building and get a lot of car time together. Lots of ‘shop talk.’" Between their three children, ages 16, 15, and almost five, there's hockey, volleyball, school, and swimming lessons. Chris coaches his son's hockey team in winter, still plays hockey and golf himself, and the family spends summers at the lake. There are very few dull or quiet moments in the Seib household.
For prospective clients, his promise is refreshingly direct. "I've benefited from more than 25 years with BMO and worked with a broad spectrum of businesses and business owners," he says. "If your immediate needs aren't wealth-specific, that's fine. I know the right people to help, and I know how to get things done."
Chris Seib – Senior Private Banker
BMO Private Wealth
Eighth Avenue Place
(T) 403-234-1641
(M) 403-473-0108