Based out of Auckland, New Zealand, Lionel Yip is a Delivery Manager in our Technology team. We recently sat down with Lionel to discover more about his journey with Zip so far. Read on to find out more.

Lionel, tell us about your background, how long you’ve been with Zip and a little bit about your role and your day to day work here.

My name is Lionel and I am a Senior Delivery Manager for Zip, based out of Auckland, New Zealand. I’ve been with Zip for six years, initially joining back in the days when we were PartPay as employee number 5, before they were acquired by Zip in 2019.

As a Senior Delivery Manager, I work with our Product Managers to validate their initiatives, reviewing the impact that any new features or changes might have on our customers before it goes to our Engineers for production.

After we’ve moved into production, I work in a testing environment to make sure that all potential edge cases are covered and the feature is working for our customers the way we intended it to.

I also support new and existing merchants, to ensure that our product works in the best possible way for their businesses. I provide support and advice on how our payment platform can seamlessly integrate with their systems, while enhancing their customer’s shopping experience.

What’s been the biggest change you’ve seen at Zip from when you first started to where we are now, and what difference has it made to your work experience?

The biggest change I’ve seen at Zip from when I first started to now has been the breadth of knowledge and collaboration that Zip’s acquisition of PartPay has facilitated. Joining the ZipFam meant we transitioned from a NZ-only business to an ANZ business, enabling us to leverage and learn from the expertise across the different teams in ANZ which increased collaboration and knowledge sharing from region to region.

How much of what you do revolves around thinking Customer First and how does this influence how you approach your work?

Our Zip value Customer First impacts every element of my role at Zip. Our Product team and our Engineers are always designing with our customers in mind, and my role is to provide an extra lens, from the perspective of our customers, to make sure that they are getting the best possible experience when using our products.

Another aspect of my role that revolves around thinking ‘Customer First’ is the work I do with our Merchants, whose online or physical stores enable customers to transact with Zip. The relationships we build with our merchants are just as, if not more, important than the ones we have with our customers, and we work hard to make sure that they are getting seamless integrations that create commercial value quickly from day one.

How does your work positively impact the relationship Zip has with its NZ-based merchants, and what one customer-centric project have you been proud to put your name to?

One of the pieces of work that I’m really proud of is the development of our relationship with The Warehouse Group (TWG) which has been fundamental in establishing Zip as a leading BNPL in the NZ market. It’s been really rewarding to watch our partnership develop and to have been involved since day one.

I also work directly alongside their engineers to help remove any technical roadblocks, for example recently, they had an enhancement that they’d like to make on their backend system to allow a seamless refund experience so I’ve worked closely with their tech team to fix and resolve any potential issues. This is now live and will vastly improve the merchant experience from their operational perspective when working with Zip transactions..

What one thing that people outside of the organisation may not know about Zip makes you excited about your future at Zip?

Every year Zip runs a Hackathon, where anyone from any department can get involved and get creative by designing a feature, product or change to how we work at Zip.

Each team pitches an idea to the wider business during an afternoon and the winners receive cash prizes, it’s not just for fun, great ideas do end up being implemented and incorporated to the business!