Get to know Zum Chief People Officer Chris Tobin

Get to know … Zum Chief People Officer Chris Tobin

As a seasoned Chief People Officer, Chris Tobin joins Zūm with more than two decades of experience in HR and Organizational Development roles at several companies, including Intercom, Affirm, Flipboard, and eBay.

As Zum’s Chief People Officer, Chris will work with our leadership as the company continues to grow its team and work toward the mission of delivering safe, reliable, sustainable and equitable student transportation. Chris will be responsible for setting and overseeing the execution of the business’s overall people strategy, which includes our entire staff and all of our incredible Zum bus drivers.

Get to know why Chris is excited to be part of Zum and how he likes to spend his free time:

What excites you about your new position at Zum?

There are a lot of things that excite me about joining Zum: joining a company in this stage of growth and expansion, the work itself, the team, and the complexity of our business. But at the core, I am most excited about the chance to help build and scale a business that has such a powerful and important social and environmental mission.

Throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege to work with some brilliant entrepreneurs, and have helped build some very successful businesses. Zum stands out from those experiences because of the positive impact on the world that I believe the company can and will continue to have on education, transportation, and environmentalism. As a parent, I know firsthand the critical service we are providing to kids, parents and schools. It’s reliable and safe transportation, but at the center, we are helping kids start the day with a positive mindset, one that puts them in a position to learn once they get to school. This alone would be a worthwhile mission, but the fact that we have the opportunity to do this and also combat climate change in a meaningful way (via bus electrification) gets me that much more excited and motivated to come to work every day.

Which Zum pillar resonates with you the most? (Flexibility, Equity, Efficiency, Safety, Sustainability and Community)

Sustainability. The following stats are staggering:

• Transportation accounts for the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
• Over 90% of the nation’s 500,000 school buses are diesel buses, which emit notoriously noxious exhaust (exhaust that also affects the air our children breathe on a daily basis).
• American school buses travel about four billion miles per year, with diesel buses emitting 8.4 million metric tons of greenhouse gas annually—equivalent to the annual energy use of more than one million homes.

I personally believe that climate change is one of the most significant global issues of our time.

At Zum, we have a legitimate chance to improve the planet by reducing our country’s carbon footprint. To be able to play a part in this important work is unbelievably motivating and satisfying.

What behaviors or personality traits do you most attribute your success to, and why?

Resilience, hard work and maintaining a learning mindset are the traits that have largely defined my career. It goes without saying, but building a business of any kind is challenging. And when that business is a startup, which means fighting for existence every day, chaos and ambiguity are par for the course. There are ups and downs and twists and turns at every stage.

One’s ability to work through the thrash and dig deep in the tough times, all while maintaining focus on the vision and mission of the company, is really the only way one can succeed and have impact. On top of this, if you aren’t learning new skills and adapting to the evolving environment and emerging problems that are in front of you, there is no way you can scale with the company and continue to add value. A wise person once said, and I agree – “What got you here won’t get you there.”

What’s your ideal way to spend your weekends?

I love to head to the mountains with friends and family to be outdoors and snowboard. But a perfect weekend for me is driving up in a snowstorm, waiting it out, braving the elements and then snowboarding in thigh-deep powder with little to no lift lines.

What is your favorite sport, and what team are you a superfan of?

I am a lifelong San Francisco Giants Fan – so much so that I bought a permanent brick at the ballpark to commemorate the 2010 World Series. Every time I go to a game with my kids, I torture them with a trip to the west entrance of Oracle Park to visit and take pictures with our memorial.

Welcome, Chris – we’re thrilled to have you on Zum’s team!

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Leading the People function at Zum. Responsible for setting and overseeing the execution of the people strategy, which includes company HQ and local teams along with the teams of Zum bus drivers, totaling more than 3000+ employees nationwide.

Zum has modernized student transportation, the nation’s largest mass transit system, and developed sustainable ways to charge the grid. Zum’s robust operations and integrated end-to-end cloud-based platform provides a modern student transportation service for school districts purpose-built around the needs of kids and the expectations of modern families. Zum provides one seamless, real-time interface for parents, drivers, schools, districts, administrators, and operators to transport children safely and with increased visibility and personalized care. Always investing in the wellbeing of communities, Zum is also the only carbon neutral student transportation provider in the nation with plans to go Net Zero with its transition to EV electric buses. Zum is available nationwide, serving more than 4,000 schools across the U.S. Learn more at www.ridezum.com.

Linked in Post:

Some exciting professional news to share: I am joining Zum as Chief People Officer, and getting back to my roots as an operator. After meeting Ritu and learning more about Zum’s incredibly important social and environmental mission, I quickly knew that I wanted to be a part of helping Zum scale to the next phase of transforming school transportation. I am eager to play a role in accelerating this important work to not only improve the lives of kids, families and schools, but also to make change for our climate in a meaningful way. You can read more here about Zum’s mission and the recent round of funding led by GIC. We are hiring for all sorts of roles across the company (including leadership roles in People Org), so don’t hesitate to reach out.