UnZipped: Healthy Cities Challenge

At Zip, health and wellbeing is an important part of how we create an environment where our Zipsters can thrive. For the second year running, Australian Zipsters took part in the Bupa Healthy Cities Challenge - a month-long movement initiative in September designed to get people moving, build healthy habits and bring our teams together, one step at a time.

We caught up with three of the Zipsters who took part - Neeraj Singh, Gemma Shim and Alvin Rusly - to hear more about the work they do, why health and wellbeing matters to them, and the highlights, rivalries and memorable moments from their 2026 BUPA Healthy Cities experience.

Neeraj, Engineering Manager

Tell us a little about your role and something you’ve been working on lately that you’re particularly proud of or excited by.

I’m the Engineering Manager for SRE and IT Operations at Zip. My team’s job is to keep our platforms reliable, so that customers and merchants can count on Zip working every time they need it. That covers everything from incident response and observability to how safely we ship change. Lately, I’ve been focused on strengthening our operational readiness for major events, which I’m proud of because it helps Zip’s teams prepare confidently and maintain a reliable customer experience during periods of high demand.

How do you make space for balance and wellbeing in your everyday life, and what helps you feel at your best at work?

For me it starts with moving every day, looking after my health and wellbeing means making time to stay active, spending time with my family, and creating a healthy balance between work and personal life. Reliability work can mean long stretches at a screen and the occasional high-pressure incident, and walking is how I reset. I think more clearly, I’m calmer under pressure and I’m a better leader for my team when I’ve looked after myself first.

Did the challenge change any of your habits or make you see movement and wellbeing differently? Share a lesson, surprise or light-hearted moment from taking part.

The challenge turned walking from something I fitted in when I could into a non-negotiable part of my day, the biggest highlight was seeing how quickly a friendly competition encouraged everyone to move more. I finished in first place with 922,043 steps, averaging more than 30,000 steps a day, which was a great personal achievement. The friendly rivalry on the leaderboard helped too: watching the top spots shift kept me lacing up on days I might have skipped. The experience was a good reminder that small, consistent choices can have a meaningful impact on our health and wellbeing.

Gemma, Sourcing Specialist

Tell us a little about your role and something you’ve been working on lately that you’re particularly proud of or excited by.

Hi I’m Gemma! I’m a Sourcing Specialist in the Procurement team. I've recently worked on some exciting large-scale contracts with some well known AI vendors. After a recent change in our AU organisational structure, I’m excited to be back in the technology function under our Chief Information Officer Memo’s leadership. Being closer to our tech teams allows me to directly support them in getting the absolute best out of the tools they use every day.

What does looking after your health and wellbeing look like for you, and why is it important alongside your work?

For me, health and wellbeing is a complete 360-degree effort, it encompasses the physical (which is crucial as a runner!), but equally the mental and spiritual. Balancing life as an aspiring elite athlete, wife, daughter, friend, and employee means I have to be intentional with my energy. In a world that is constantly "go, go, go," I truly believe that if we don't take rest the way we were designed to, burnout is inevitable.

Prioritising holistic health is what helps me strive to bring my best self to every area of my life and pursue the goals I care about.

What was your highlight from the Healthy Cities Steps Challenge? Was there a memorable moment, unexpected rivalry or favourite exercise route?

A major highlight for me was the friendly team rivalries, it brought a really fun energy to the workplace! I also loved getting to learn more about how different colleagues stay active. During the challenge, I was actually training for a half-marathon as a charity runner for Beyond Blue.

My absolute favorite route to log steps on was running from the Lower North Shore into the city across the Harbor Bridge right as the sun sets - you just can't beat that view!

Alvin, Senior Analytics Enablement Engineer

Tell us a little about your role and something you’ve been working on lately that you’re particularly proud of or excited by.

Hello! My name is Alvin and I am part of the Data and AI Enablement Squad here at Zip. My typical day involves making it easier for fellow Zipsters to find, trust and use our data and expand our analytical and AI capabilities across teams.

Recently I've been most intrigued on the enterprise side of enablement, which is more tricky that it looks! My latest exciting contribution is building foundations and agentic ecosystem that let teams ask questions of our data in plain English and get the answers they can rely on. It has been very rewarding to see it play out from trial and error, to a successful integration to daily workflow.

What does looking after your health and wellbeing look like for you, and why is it important alongside your work?

I've always been an active person so a day without some sweat would feel strange. But most excitingly some of my closest friendships either started on a court or a running route. There is something about the community around sport that is hard to find anywhere else. Everyone turns up looking forward to accomplishing a goal, celebrating the small wins together and going home feeling rewarded.

Additionally for me staying active isn't something I fit in around work, it's almost a part of what helps me do it well!

What was your highlight from the Healthy Cities Steps Challenge? Was there a memorable moment, unexpected rivalry or favourite exercise route?

The best highlight is definitely the leaderboard scrummage at the last 2 days of the race, where team P was taking a sudden leapfrog to number 1! That rallied the team together and made us push harder to reclaim top spot.

Claiming the crown at the end with the team really was amazing to see and definitely a memorable outcome for the month. One of the lesser highlights is my 55k steps days and late night loops around my apartment basements - I’m glad I won't have to do those again for another year!