Why Quality Engineering Deserves a Seat at the Leadership Table
Where does quality assurance fit in your organization? Is it embedded in development, risk, or another area, or is it an equal partner with equal decision-making? Quality assurance is often seen as a cost reduction center that is simply a validation unit—and the most often squeezed for time to ensure product delivery. But what if that could change? With the advent of digital transformation and a plethora of intelligent products available in the market, consumers have numerous options, and even the slightest glitch can cause them to shift their brands. Quality, trust, and experience have become of paramount importance for companies to ride this wave. It is QA who is best placed to enable and deliver these objectives—not only across the entire software delivery lifecycle, but throughout our technology as a whole. Allyson Stuart has more than once transformed quality assurance into a quality engineering function on equal footing with other technology leadership teams. She will share the resistance she encountered in taking companies and teams on this journey and how she shifted the mindset, turning blockers into solutions and ultimately helping quality engineering earn its rightful place at the leadership table.
Allyson Stuart is an executive global IT manager with 34 years' experience leading transformational strategies in quality assurance, service delivery, risk management, and production support. She has served as a CIO, CISO, and Global Head of Technology Risk, but is best known as a chief quality officer who has built large QA organizations from the ground up in the financial and medical industries. She is presently the Global Head of Quality Engineering at Refinitiv and a member of the overall technology leadership team. Allyson is also a certified professional trainer through the AMA and ASTD, as well as a founding member of QA and change management forums. She is the recipient of 16 top Achievement Awards for Innovation by a woman in IT. Equal to her passion for technology, she is a champion of people, having launched and run many diversity and inclusion programs over the years.