Terri-Lee Weeks is not interested in innovation that looks good in the boardroom but fails to change anything meaningful for clients. For the President and CEO of Tangerine Bank Canada, the real measure of progress is clear: Can the technology at play help people build better financial futures?

“Innovation for innovation’s sake doesn’t really make a difference,” she tells The CEO Magazine. “It has to be about the client outcome.”

This focus on the client sits at the heart of a significant transformation underway inside Canada’s original digital bank.

Since taking on the CEO role in November 2024, Weeks has been leading Tangerine into what she describes as its ‘next evolution of innovation’ – an era marked by democratizing financial wellness at scale.

Democratizing wealth

The ambition is completely reshaping the bank’s strategy, technology stack and long-term vision. It’s also redefining what a digital bank can become in Canada.

“When we look at where the world is and how people are faring in it, there’s so much opportunity for us to bring wealth building and better financial outcomes to Canadians,” she says.

It’s an opportunity that goes beyond traditional personal banking. The goal, she says, is not to cater exclusively to affluent clients but to extend the kind of financial planning tools and wealth-building capabilities historically reserved for high-net-worth clients to the wider public.

“Coming into this role, I wanted to see if we could take the experiences that high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth people have had for decades in deep financial planning, wealth planning and growth of their assets for life planning and democratize that for a much broader population,” she explains.

“Building wealth is for everybody – not just people who already have money.”

This philosophy has become a driving force behind Tangerine’s transformation. Long known for its savings products and exceptional client service, the bank is now positioning itself at the intersection of digital banking, personalized finance and wealth building.

“When we think about the strategy for Tangerine going forward, we want to make sure we have the foundation,” Weeks says. “Then we ask, ‘What do we want to do for next-gen true digital banking?’”

Reimagining digital banking

The answer, in part, lies in technology. Over the past 18 months, Weeks and her team have scoured the globe, examining banking innovation across the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia and the Nordics to identify capabilities that the Canadian market could benefit from.

“We wanted to see what the rest of the world was doing,” Weeks says. “There’s so much innovation happening across the globe, and we wanted to be the ones to bring that innovation to Canadians.”

This thinking ultimately led to Tangerine’s landmark collaboration with Engine by Starling, a cloud-native banking platform developed by UK-based Starling Bank.

Under the 10-year agreement, Tangerine is leveraging Engine’s next-generation banking infrastructure, enabling the bank to modernize its digital ecosystem and significantly expand its capabilities.

“We’re working with Engine, transforming Tangerine into a cloud-native platform, which will give our clients real-time finance tools previously unavailable in Canada,” Weeks explains.

The agreement is expected to introduce a range of enhanced digital capabilities for Tangerine’s more than two million clients, including real-time payments readiness, richer data insights, improved onboarding experiences, personalized money management tools and more sophisticated financial planning functionality.

“What it brings is a different way to grow wealth,” Weeks says. “It brings a different speed. And it brings an enhanced level of security to the table.”

Importantly, the move positions Tangerine to capitalize on the future rollout of open banking and real-time payment infrastructure in Canada – areas where the country has historically lagged behind markets like the United Kingdom.

“There’s an opportunity for us to take capabilities that have already been built and tested in that market and bring them to the Canadian market,” she explains.

“So when the rail comes online and when open banking comes online, we’re ready with really rich data information that comes from the new tech capability.”

Building wealth for all

Historically, Tangerine has built its reputation as a personal bank. But Weeks sees enormous potential to evolve that relationship by helping clients better understand, manage and grow their financial futures over time.

“People who were the savers 20 years ago are now the affluent today,” she points out.

Recently, Tangerine launched what Weeks describes as a ‘minimum viable product’ wealth experience, giving clients a clearer view of their holistic net worth and long-term planning potential.

The platform enables users to assess assets and liabilities, model savings scenarios and better understand how small behavioral changes can influence long-term outcomes.

“It’s really providing them more of an early financial planning snapshot,” she describes.

Over time, Tangerine plans to expand those capabilities further, integrating AI-driven insights and real-time financial data to create increasingly personalized experiences.

“We talk a lot about momentum and how we can help our clients build momentum,” Weeks says. “It’s also about identifying what momentum means for them.”

This personalized approach is especially important for a country as geographically and economically diverse as Canada.

“What financial wellness looks like on a farm in Northern Alberta is very different than what it may look like in Atlantic Canada for a fisheries worker or a small business provider on the West Coast,” she says.

“We want to make sure that we’re meeting the unique needs of our clients and not tarring everybody with the same brush.”

The human side of innovation

Inside Tangerine, Weeks’ leadership style mirrors many of the same principles shaping the bank’s client strategy: openness, collaboration and empowerment.

When she first arrived, one of the things that stood out most was the bank’s deeply embedded culture, something employees refer to as the ‘orange spark’.

“It’s grounded in a very strong focus on the client,” Weeks says. “The whole team prides itself on its award-winning client service.”

The bank has adopted what Weeks calls a ‘win for today’ strategy, launching new products and services quickly and then learning from clients as they respond.

One way they do this is by monitoring client feedback across social media and client channels. These insights are then used to refine products and services in real time.

“All feedback is a gift,” Weeks says. “That is how we learn.”

Recent product launches, including a new rewards credit card and personalized benefits platform called Benefinder™, were shaped directly by client demand.

“That’s such an important part of what we do,” she says.

Leading through change

Behind the digital transformation is a cultural one. Weeks believes innovation cannot sit within one team or department – it has to be embedded across the organization.

“Our innovation team is the whole team,” Weeks says.

Her leadership approach is centered on empowerment and giving teams the space to make decisions quickly within clear guardrails.

“Leadership needs to be about how we remove blockers, how we are putting teams together and then empowering those teams to create something new at speed,” she explains.

As Tangerine prepares for the next phase of its transformation, Weeks remains focused on the long game.

“I would love to see Tangerine as the leading innovation bank and wealth manager for Canadians,” she says.

“If we are a household name, that means people have better financial wellness – that would be a fantastic outcome.”