“What I love about RBC is that they invest in their employees,” says Jobbin George. And that investment has inspired Jobbin’s potential as he continues to drive meaningful change at the bank for both employees and clients.
Jobbin describes his job as “managing cyber incidents in the supply chain among other strategic cyber initiatives.” Translation? He fights cybercrime. “The bad guys use all their imagination to adversely impact the bank — it takes a lot of thinking to ensure we keep the bank safe,” says Jobbin.
The journey to effectively fend off those bad guys has been fascinating and rewarding. When Jobbin first started at RBC, leadership wanted him to create a major incident management process that spanned the entire bank. “It was not easy because the bank is massive,” remembers Jobbin. “Everyone had their vision of how they wanted to see things done.”
So a small group created operating models and met with executive groups to sell their plan as the way forward. Then they met with smaller IT groups that were doing similar functions throughout the bank. Jobbin and a colleague would bring a pizza lunch to a different team every week to discuss the value of an integrated centre. Slowly, people came on board.
“Fast forward two years and we were able to get it off the ground,” says Jobbin. “That was a very transformative effort. This was the beginning of the IT Command Centre.”
Jobbin says the command centre is “like NASA” with 18 screens that look at and react to alerts. If something fails on a massive scale, Jobbin’s team leaps into action. “There is never a dull moment working as a Cyber Crisis Lead, it is an adrenaline rush of sorts and no two days are the same,” he says.
Besides fighting cybercrime, Jobbin is also part of an employee resource group called INSPIRE. He and his teammates work on DEI initiatives that encourage equality in the workplace. And Jobbin, who was born in Hyderabad, India, has seen the impact: “The bank has gone beyond any financial institution across Canada to be a more inclusive workplace for employees that identify with diverse communities. RBC allows people to succeed, especially people of colour.”
Jobbin is a strong believer in “if you are not learning, you are not growing” and one learning experience that had a big impact on Jobbin’s personal growth was participating in the Technology & Operations Rotational Program. He spent two years across four different teams working on transformational projects.
His first stop on this journey was learning about Design Thinking and developing a user-centric mindset. “This was mind boggling to me,” says Jobbin. “I come from a process and procedures shop where you’re indoctrinated to do what your documentation says. But this is so different because now I am thinking: how can I make this process better for the end user?”
After that, he worked on robotics, building the interaction module on a humanoid robot, Pepper, at the branch in Toronto’s Sherway Gardens. Then Jobbin moved on to cyber security, followed by building products and service API’s in cards and payments. This all led to his current director position. “Every role that I have had at RBC over the past five years has been transformational because I got to work with some amazing leaders,” says Jobbin.
Jobbin doesn’t take any of these experiences at RBC for granted. “Because of my gratitude towards how much the bank has invested in my personal and career growth, I owe it to bring my A-game every day and support this bank to deliver the best-in-class service to our clients.”
