Team Q&A: Megan Ozanne

I am based in Cambridge, where, outside of work, I enjoy the beautiful countryside around where I live. I have an interest in martial arts and have studied several over the years, including Aikido and Karate. I also enjoy keeping fit through athletics and cycling.
 
I am lucky enough to have experience in a range of different industries. My Quality Assurance (QA) career actually started with testing medical devices. I have been fortunate enough to work with some exceptional QAs over the years and learnt many different testing techniques from them.

As Quality Assurance Manager at Neo, I oversee a team of enthusiastic and hard-working testers to ensure product quality is of the highest standard. I am also involved in communications with the support team to get feedback from clients about how the platform is performing, allowing us to ensure we are delivering what our clients require.
 
I also work with the developers and the rest of the QA team to sign off releases and raise bugs. I liaise with our Chief Product Officer to get his feedback on the product and to demonstrate new features for User Acceptance Testing.
 
I find my role as QA Manager immensely rewarding, as I get to see tangible and real-world developments within the platform and experience (and enjoy) its development.

I think strong decision-making skills are exceptionally important as a team leader, along with being open to ideas and allowing team members the freedom to explore their ideas.
 
A key part of any QA Manager’s job is being able to effectively communicate the ideas and concepts of the business to the QA team.
 
In addition, recognising your own strengths and weaknesses allows you to more effectively recruit team members that will compliment your skill sets and the skill sets of those already in the team. By applying this approach, we have managed to create a very strong team here at Neo. We have a diverse team of multi-skilled testers, whose experiences and interests all blend together to make an effective collaboration.

It’s a very exciting time to be in the industry at the moment with various new platforms and innovations that are being adopted.
 
A lot has changed during my time at Neo. I have especially noticed this in areas where more traditional platforms are attempting to keep up with the fast-paced start-ups breaking through. More and more people are moving over to the digital solutions being offered by fintechs. This just adds to the testament that these new companies are offering something that people can be confident in as a treasury solution.

The main change I foresee is with regards to reduced fees, as emerging companies compete for client’s business.
 
The incumbents providing payment services to SMEs have largely been unchallenged for several decades. Now, with a new generation of companies like Neo offering an alternative, businesses are realising just how much they were being charged and how much they can save.
 
I also anticipate an improvement to the user experience as more traditional systems compete with the more modern start-ups, simpler workflows and more automated processes available to users.