Ian Arellano
Executive Vice President and General Counsel
Scotiabank
After a successful career in private practice with Torys LLP and McCarthy Tétrault LLP, Ian became Scotiabank's Executive Vice President and General Counsel on January 2, 2018. In addition to overseeing Scotiabank's legal matters, he has oversight over the Corporate Governance Office, the Corporate Secretary's Department, and Global Communications, Social Impact, and Sustainability.
Ian is Scotiabank's representative with the federal government's Sustainable Finance Action Council (SFAC). SFAC is comprised of 25 organizations from Canada's deposit-taking institutions, insurance companies, and pension funds, which, combined, have more than $10 trillion in assets. The SFAC brings together public and private sector financial expertise to support the growth of a strong, well-functioning, sustainable finance market and strengthen the mobilization of private capital in support of Canada's climate goals.
In October 2021, Scotiabank announced its commitment to join the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) led by former central bank governor Mark Carney, which commits them to net-zero emissions targets tied to lending. NZBA is an industry group convened by the United Nations to speed up efforts to combat climate change. Ian had oversight over the Bank's recently completed Net Zero Carbon Pathway project, a close to year-long project to identify and, where feasible, set targets for the reduction of the Bank's financed emissions intensity in key sectors of the Bank's financing activities most relevant from a carbon emissions perspective. The Bank expects to publicly announce the results of these efforts shortly.