RHB Bank Berhad
Headquartered and listed in Malaysia, RHB Banking Group is the longest established local bank, formed through the mergers of several banks, the oldest of which was founded in 1913. The banking group and its subsidiaries offer a wide range of services ranging from retail banking, business banking, corporate and investment banking, asset management to Islamic banking to clients in Southeast Asia.
In 2021, the bank had more than 17000 employees operating more than 270 branches in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei and Vietnam.
The Brief
RHB Bank approached GlobalK with a vision in mind to build a new digital hub from their Kuala Lumpur offices in order for them to complement their impressive growth trajectory, alongside driving efficiencies and improving quality across the region. We had to deliver a team of 18 software engineers and data scientists from top tier technology firms ranging from Senior to Director level. This was the first time the bank had created their own flagship team, instead of relying on acquisition, with the objective of expanding their business across the SME space.
Our Method
It was a challenging mission because the firm faced stiff competition not only for clients but also for staff. Although the Southeast Asia market is fortunately fluid with talent across IT services, finding the right candidate was not easy. It is crucial to find a candidate with the right personality, considerable expertise and possessing strong commitment to long-term growth.
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Spent time with all hiring partners to understand vision and agenda – then provided counsel on proposed team structure and target firms within the region. We advised this project should be completed with full anonymity without any disclosure to or across the Malaysia or wider market – GlobalK provided NDAs for all candidates engaged.
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In line with the proposed organogram, we began the search with critical roles in the IT industry which were both Senior and Director roles – who we considered to be highly important to the success of this recruitment project.
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Due to the sector specific mandate, we conducted targeted headhunted approaches for candidates as well as reaching out to our existing network across local and international IT firms, including start-up, to secure senior appointments.
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Provided candidates with full profiles of everyone they were due to meet, and fully debriefed them the minute their meetings were completed.
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We constantly update our client on the progress of the project at agreed deadline, providing useful data for both this project and future projects with RHB Bank.
The Result
We successfully found all the required candidates and met all the deadlines. The digital hub was successfully set up and contributed significantly to the digital transformation of RHB Bank, allowing them to operate more efficiently and provide better customer services.
