Meeting Veni Iozzo - Reimagining tomorrow’s corporate landscape
I’m in Toronto, on my way to CIBC Square. The new headquarters rises above Bay Street and is hard to miss.
Veni Iozzo, CIBC’s Executive Vice President, has invited me to see the building. When we meet in the lobby, she greets me warmly and starts talking about the move, not as a design statement, but as a decision about how people work.
We sit down for a coffee before walking through the space, and I ask what mattered most when they started planning it.
“We did not want to build just another office tower,” she says. “We wanted to create a workplace that reflects how people work now. More collaboration, more flexibility, and more spaces where people can actually connect.”
As we walk through the building, she points out how open everything feels.
“A lot of thought went into the experience of being here,” she says. “Natural light, shared spaces, flow, all of that matters. People do better work when the environment supports them.”
One of the first things she shows me is the elevated park that links the two towers.
“I like this part,” she says. “It gives people space to step away for a moment. And because it is open to the public too, it makes the building feel more connected to the city.”
We talk about technology next. I ask how much of the building was designed around that.
“It is part of everything,” Veni says. “From how people enter the building to how they move through their day, the goal was to make it easy. Technology should support the work, not complicate it.”
Sustainability comes up naturally as we continue the tour.
“That had to be built in from the beginning,” she says. “It is not something you add later. The decisions around materials, systems, and efficiency were part of the project from the start.”
By the time we return to the lobby, what stays with me is that Veni talks about the building in a very grounded way. She is proud of it, of course, but she keeps coming back to the same point: how it works for people.
Before we part, she says, “This building is meant to support how we work today, but also where work is heading.”
As I step back outside into downtown Toronto, that feels like the real story. CIBC Square is not only a new headquarters. It shows how one company is thinking about workplace, culture, and the role an office can still play.
Maarten Schafer
Chief Storyteller
CoolBrands People
