Holly Heglin probably isn’t who you’d imagine when you think of a traditional bank executive. With a love of bodybuilding and cool tattoos covering her arms, Heglin has all the hallmarks of a boundary-pusher.
As Head of AI Product and Strategy at TD and a core member of Layer 6, the Bank’s leading AI research and development lab, pushing boundaries is the name of the game. In her seven years with the bank, Heglin has become one of the many faces of TD’s patent inventors, earning TD awards for both Invention and Inventor of the Year.
Her first patent granted was in auto finance, using machine learning to streamline the criteria for customers looking to get pre-approval on car loans. “It was about removing friction so that we could simplify the process for our customers and serve them in a quicker way,” Heglin explains.
In the last three years, TD has grown its inventor base by over 40 per cent. Heglin is one of more than 1,000 inventors contributing to the bank’s growing patents output and innovating to solve the problems of its customers, colleagues and communities. TD has increased its patents portfolio to 2,500 filings, which is up 110 per cent since 2020. That growth is a result of the Bank empowering its colleagues to pitch ideas, own them, and see them through until they’re in market.
“I always say, we’re not in the patent game, we’re in the innovation game, and patents flow from innovation,” says Josh Death, VP of Intellectual Property and Ideation at TD, who has helped steer the company toward its growing culture of innovation.
