Shift expands its tech leadership team

Shift, a provider of credit and payments platforms that help businesses trade, pay and access funds, has expanded its tech leadership team with two senior appointments.

Ricky McAlister has been appointed Head of Engineering while Melinda Anderson has taken up the role of Head of Product Design.

As Head of Engineering, Ricky leads a team that builds, evolves and future-proofs all of Shift’s platforms, across brokers, merchants, customers and internal users. Ricky joined Shift from Zip where he was Director of Engineering responsible for Zip Business B2B products and the merchant and partner platforms.

“With Shift’s continued growth comes a strong engineering need, to ensure people, processes and technology are at the forefront,” said Ricky. “While my role has a strong tech focus, it is equally about encouraging growth and innovation within the current team while introducing individuals who can add to the incredible talent at Shift.”

Melinda joined Shift as Head of Product Design, with a focus on ensuring all new products, and existing platforms provide a best-in-class customer experience, ranging from external customers and partners to internal stakeholders.

“Shift’s platforms and products are second to none, which was a huge part of the appeal of this role,” said Melinda. “Above all, Shift’s culture is one of collaboration, which is key to the success of my team when working with engineering, product, marketing and other stakeholders to keep customers at the heart of our business.”

Melinda’s previous roles include Head of Product Strategy & Design at Lab49, a financial markets technology consultancy, Experience Design Director for Digitas and User Experience Lead – Mobile at Commonwealth Bank.

Shift’s Chief Technology Officer Eldar Averdi commented that these appointments are part of setting up Shift for its next phase of growth, which comes with product iterations and an exponential increase in use across Shift’s online platforms.

“With Mel’s focus on best-in-class product design and Ricky’s holistic people-and-technology view of engineering, we are well-placed to continue innovating as more businesses look to us for finance on demand,” said Eldar.

“Our broker platform Shift Connect, along with our Shift Trade platform and new Equipment Line, are experiencing strong growth.

“We will continue to grow our team of functional experts with a focus of developing new products and processes while iterating current platforms to ensure the customer experience is second-to-none.”