Isha Kanaskar

Background

About Isha Kanaskar

Isha is a lawyer with an MBA in Finance and Strategy from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. She has led high-impact, multi-stakeholder projects across banking and legal sectors, designing and delivering large-scale initiatives that generate measurable value and long-term business impact. She graduated from a premiere Indian law school with a specialization in business law, and began her career advising corporate clients across financial services, FMCG, and manufacturing sectors. Her work in legal strategy focused on helping organizations streamline operations, optimize transaction structures, and strengthen governance. She has led projects with cross-functional teams in finance, accounting, marketing, legal, and sales to execute complex initiatives supported by data-backed decision-making. Her decision to pursue an MBA was driven by an interest in solving business problems through strategic and analytical frameworks. At Rotman, she deepened her expertise in finance, strategy, and organizational leadership. Most recently, Isha worked with CIBC as Manager, Strategic Partnerships. In this role, she developed and presented business cases to evaluate new partnership opportunities, delivered strategic initiatives to enhance client engagement, and supported portfolio performance reporting for senior leadership. Her work contributed to partnership programs projected to deliver over $200 million in incremental client spend and informed long-term investment and loyalty strategies for the bank.