Ms. Gibson began to play that same role for other women. Fifteen years ago, she and a colleague established the Advancement of Women in Leadership committee at RBC, an employee-led group that helps women develop leadership skills, achieve their career aspirations and network across the organization’s 98,000+ global employees.
“Our effort at RBC continues to evolve beyond focusing on gender alone. We are taking into account other dimensions of diversity and the support that is needed to better enable colleagues who also identify as BIPOC or members of the LGBTQ2S+ community in their career journeys,” she explains.
RBC has a Diverse Talent Sponsorship program that focuses on the development and sponsorship of potential leaders who identify as Black, Indigenous and women of colour.
While RBC fosters talent from within, it also seeks out talent with an array of experiences. Andrea Barrack, senior vice-president of sustainability & impact, joined RBC in 2022. She has had a diverse career path with roles in health care, the public sector and in politics, and says there has been a common theme in each of her roles of “creating, amplifying and executing ideas to help organizations build a better world.”
“There’s always been an underlying societal purpose to my work,” she explains, and RBC felt like the right next step because it’s a “purpose-led organization.”