Tech @ RBC RBC Fellows: Recognizing and supporting tech leadership and innovation

Some of the world’s brightest technologists call RBC home. Every day they turn their big ideas into reality – from cyber security to AI and machine learning, digital to software development, architecture to data science and more. And RBC has several programs in place to enable meaningful careers.

RBC's Technical Distinction Program (TDP), launched in 2016, recognizes experts who have demonstrated significant technical expertise, organizational influence and strategic business impact in a critical area of technology. "The goal of the TDP is to recognize and elevate the contributions and impact of our top technical talent and align RBC’s tech community with other large global tech organizations,” says Erin Muir, VP, HR, RBC Technology & Operations. “The standards are rigorous. In six years, we have inducted 19 technologists as Distinguished Technologists and 3 technologists as Fellows.”

Vinh Tran who is a Distinguished Technologist, and Greg Mori were recently inducted as RBC Fellows, the highest level of recognition for RBC’s outstanding technical leaders at the executive level. The Fellow role is established as part of our Technical Career Journey (TCJ) in an area of cutting-edge technology that is critical to our business strategy where RBC needs technical thought leadership and expertise. RBC Fellows are focused on developing our approach in areas of technology critical to the business and delivering first-of-their-kind and innovative solutions that drive business value. Bob Blainey was introduced as RBC’s first Fellow in 2021.

Greg is part of Borealis AI, RBC’s AI research centre where he leads the research team and advances machine learning. Vinh is responsible for leading the private and public Cloud platform engineering teams and sets the vision and direction and implements the technologies RBC uses in the Cloud domain.

In your own words, what is an RBC Fellow?

Greg Mori, RBC Fellow, AI: Fellows are leaders in different technological areas at the bank. So in my case, it’s AI, and Vinh’s is Cloud. Fellows also highlight technical excellence as something that RBC values and people can strive towards, and I think that’s the most important part - it recognizes and elevates technical expertise. Having a Fellow is a way of saying we have people with technical leadership in different technical domains and each brings a different strength to the program.

Vinh Tran, RBC Fellow, Cloud: The Fellow role has an industry-side scope at RBC. Historically, our Principal Engineer role has been a technical leader with a department scope, Senior Principal Engineers have been technical leaders with an organization scope, and now the Fellow is a technical leader with an industry scope. This means our Fellows are responsible to influence the industry and advocate on behalf of RBC and guide the strategic direction in their respective domains.

How does the Technical Distinction Program and the Fellow designation impact our colleagues, clients and partners?

Greg: It recognizes technological excellence and helps position RBC in key domains in financial services, and more broadly, highlights our leadership. Not only does it set us apart from our traditional banking competitors, it also shows that we can compete with large tech organizations for best-in-class technologists.

Vinh: This is a topic that I’m most passionate about. Having strong technical leaders who understand the technology and business, and can apply it - that’s the voice that’s important for us to have at the decision-making tables. At the same time, RBC has invested a tremendous deal in Cloud and data, so it’s important for us to have a voice on a global stage to advocate and influence the direction of those domains. Having that influence from a technology perspective will lead to better outcomes for RBC internally and externally.

What does this achievement mean to you personally?

Greg: It’s a real honour to be in the company of RBC’s first Fellow, Bob Blainey who has had an incredible career and impact within RBC and externally. Externally, I have a connection with the broader AI community already, but I appreciate that there’s this respect for technical excellence within RBC and that has led many people within the bank to reach out to me and get to know them. I believe the designation will allow me to develop relationships with more colleagues inside of RBC.

Vinh: I’m humbled, and it speaks volumes not about what I’ve achieved personally, but more so what the Cloud team has achieved – what we’ve done with Cloud. I joined RBC five years ago and Cloud was very nascent; we were a small program and didn’t have many mission-critical business applications running on the Cloud. Now, we’re critical to the bank’s success, so much so that Cloud has been selected as a domain that is critical to our business strategy and justifies having a Fellow. That tells me that we’ve done something very special.

RBC Fellows: Recognizing and Supporting Tech Leadership and Innovation

In your own words, what is an RBC Fellow?

How does the Technical Distinction Program and the Fellow designation impact our colleagues, clients and partners?

What does this achievement mean to you personally?