CIO50 2023 #5 George Gorman, Zip Co

Name: George Gorman
Title: Chief technology officer
Company: Zip Co
Commenced role: June 2022
Reporting line: CEO
Member of the executive team: Yes
Technology Function: 166 staff, 9 direct reports

A number of technology initiatives over the past year have not only helped Zip Co stand out in a competitive marketplace but have also played a part in it reaching profitability during a tough period for the Australian financial services industry.

As chief technology officer, George Gorman and his team have led the development of several innovative initiatives under the themes of “doing more, smarter” and “1% atomic change” which have enabled the company to differentiate itself in the competitive “buy now, pay later” sector.

The project also helped drive sustainable growth and security, enabling Zip to reach profitability during one of the hardest economic and cyber security years for the Australian financial services industry.

Gorman’s work focuses on three areas:

• Using data insights and machine learning for better decision-making,
• Using AI and machine learning for better cyber security and anti-fraud defence, and
• Using automation and the concept of improve everything by 1 per cent for better scalable growth and operational efficiency.

“The Zip team has now integrated big data analytics tools and practices using SnowPlow and Snowflake as our innovative cutting-edge data creation and data lake tools,” Gorman tells CIO Australia.

“Our biggest impacts have been in using machine learning and automation to make faster, more efficient, more targeted decisions.”

AI and machine learning modelling

The tools collect data from customers’ use of mobile apps through to in-store and online purchases. From which we generate insights into customer and merchant behaviours, trends, and patterns enabling better targeted financial forecasting, credit decisioning, product profitability modelling, and marketing of targeted customer and merchant promotions.

We also connect Zip’s fraud, credit risk, and customer experience systems for smarter credit risk forecasting and decision-making on credit levels – the amount Zip will loan to a customer based on over 50 criteria relating to behaviours, credit rating, economic trends and trends of similar customers.

This helps to ensure Zip is lending responsibly in a way tailored for each customer. Plus, offering added flexible repayment options tailored to customers’ behaviours, helps ensure customers are not overstretched on repayments, and can fearlessly be in control their own finances.

The right data quickly

All of the data within Zip’s data lake is then presented in numerous business dashboards and reports via Tableau and Amplitude for better business visualisation and sitting under Atlan for data cataloguing and search.

“These platforms enable our staff to find the right data quickly, no matter where in the organisation it sits, for timely decisions,” says Gorman.

“By leveraging the power of data analytics machine learning and insights, Zip has created a unique solution that helps us lead the ‘buy now, pay later’ marketplace during a period of market economic stress and head winds.”

Gorman and his team have also made significant contributions to improving Zip’s cyber security and anti-fraud posture. They have implemented a number of state-of-the-art cyber security systems which use advanced analytics and AI algorithms to identify and fix vulnerabilities, detect advanced threats as they start and limit the impact of cyber or fraud attacks on customers, staff or system data.

Zip has integrated SumoLogic’s security information and event management (SIEM) technology, and anti-fraud tool, BioCatch in its cold war fight against bad actors in the space.

“This has safeguarded the company’s operations and customer data during a heightened period of cyberattacks on Australian companies, with financial services in particular being aggressively targeted,” says Gorman.

Meanwhile, Gorman has implemented automation and a continuous process improvement methodology to all end-to-end processes within Zip, with the goal of finding away to improve everything by 1 per cent every time it’s used.

“The compound result of all those 1 per cent improvements over time has been significant operational efficiency gains,” says Gorman.

Automation teams have targeted customer experience, merchant, credit and risk, collections processes, DevOps delivery pipelines, IT onboarding and offboarding, and SaaS licencing and access controls – reducing end-to-end processing time and effort for each.

“This has delivered significant results for Zip over the last year and set us up to face the current economic challenges, and to scale efficiently and significantly ahead of competitors when the economy rebounds,” says Gorman.

Best next steps

Each of these innovations came about through Gorman’s championing of continuous innovative improvement and reflection on successes and stumbles.

“I encourage the teams to look at every tool, ritual and artefact that Zip uses and review both success and failure with the same lens – ‘Could we do better, could we improve it by 1 per cent?’,” he says.

“This way Zip has no best practice but instead always looks at the best next steps – how do we improve 1 per cent each time? As a result, there are thousands of innovative changes with a significant compound effect happening in Zip throughout the year and ongoing.”

Louis van Wyk