Previous studies by Ohmiya et al have demonstrated that the t BuOK-promoted cross-coupling of tertiary benzylic boronate with aryl halide requires high temperatures of 100~120 °C and is not applicable to secondary benzylic boronate. However, based on our mechanistic findings, we predicted that the reactivity of both secondary and tertiary benzylic boronates can be enhanced by simply increasing the amount of t BuOK. This enhancement was demonstrated by performing the reaction with 4-cyanopyridine at room temperature, resulting in the corresponding products (1-3) in good to excellent yields within 30 minutes (Fig. ). Notably, the yields of reactions with secondary and tertiary benzylic boronates were lower (18% for 1, 46% and 55% for 2 and 3, respectively) in the presence of one equivalent of t BuOK as suggested by Ohmiya et al. These results indicate that expanding the scope of benzylic boronates through the current nucleophilicity enhancement strategy is feasible.