Achieving Moonshot Goals – Miguel Joson
By: Neil Nepomuceno
Nowadays, almost everything is happening at a faster rate, including changes in the workplace.
As a former HR practitioner for a real-estate company, Miguel Joson would eventually succeed in Retail Banking for UnionBank.
He joined UB back in 2017, where he excelled as part of the Human Resources Learning and Development Group.
He spent 2 years as a Training Manager before transferring to Miss Joyce Gonzalez’s Group under the Customer Segmentations Unit in 2019.
They did a lot of collaboration sessions to get the ideas out to aid the development of the Relationship Managers and training programs for Retail Banking. As Miguel recalled, “She was as big mentor for me, sinundan niya yung career track ko dito sa UnionBank.”
“When I was still with HR, it was more of advocacy rather than a job. Being able to teach the relationship managers about the fundamentals and also products, and watch them grow was an honor for me and my team.”
Throughout his career, Miguel improved his work with the help of his mentors. He recalled Ms. Perlie Lontoc, from the Retail Banking Center as someone he looked up to because of her Empathy and leadership, Sir Jaypee Soliman the former Customer Segment Head who taught him how to collaborate, work efficiently, and showed him the ins and outs of how to be a good Customer Segment Manager.
Lastly, his Current Line Manager, and Customer Segment Head, Krister Palatino. He is like a big brother to Miguel, and according to him, he’s the “ideal banker.” Krister was a top Relationship Manager before, and he looks up to him when it comes to career goals.
He applied all the learnings to his work, ensuring that he was teaching the next generation of Bankers.
Not all RM’s are tech-savvy but Miguel knows that everyone is giving their best in dealing with their clients digitally.
“When I see the RMs adapting to the unit’s digital advancements, I do better in doing my deliverables because I know that I have their full support,” he said.
“From traditional Bankers, they are now becoming a digital bankers, and we are proud of them.” He added.
Slaying Moonshot Goals
His team also worked with numerous CASA products, including RDAO & CDAO (Corporate Digital Account Opening), the first Customer Relationship Management tool in the industry with a Digital Account Opening feature.
RDAO (Retail Digital Account Opening), its retail counterpart, is similar to CDAO. It “brings the branch to the client’s office” with its features and seamless options via MAX 5.0, their Customer Relationship Tool.
Miguel describes these two as one of the biggest enhancements that they did as a team.
“We opened up a lot of different products, from SMEs, to big corporations, Dollars, Euros, Britain pound, Japanese Yen; basically anything that you can open in the branch? You can open using RDAO and CDAO.
Initially slated, for 2024, Miguel and his team worked hard to make RDAO and CDAO available for the public in just two months.
“It’s a collective effort. I want to put the (RM) in the spotlight kasi every digitization that we are doing now. It wouldn’t be possible if they cannot deliver their tasks.” He shared.
To date, all the CASA products including RDAO and CDAO are still used by many.
In recognition of his leadership, In, 2020 he was awarded the Presidential Award for Digital Relationship Manager Squad.
His advice to fellow UnionBankers to adapt faster
“Always go for the moonshot goal. Keep in mind that it will always seem impossible until you do it. Keep going.”
His advice for future UnionBankers and young professionals
“Don’t be scared – with the technologies and all the tech-things that are happening now. (Kasi it’s a stigma, na pagdating sa tech, kailangan IT graduate ka, magaling ka mag-computer.)
“I for one, I don’t consider myself tech-savvy, I cannot do coding, and I don’t have any background in IT, yet here I am, talking about IT.
“All the terminologies you will encounter from the developers, and the progress of the project, you will learn it along the way. It’s not bad to ask “stupid questions”. It will be bad if you don’t ask questions.”