Gemma Taylor’s career spans finance, technology and now logistics, driven by a focus on refining complex operations and making them more agile and fit for future trends.

Born and raised in Sheffield, Taylor studied International Business, Finance and Economics at the University of Manchester before beginning her career in London at PwC, working in investment audits. It gave her a solid foundation in financial rigour and detail.

After moving back to the North West, she took on roles at Royal London and later Barclays, where her career took a defining turn. As a finance business partner supporting Barclays’ technology division, she developed a growing interest in how technology could transform large organisations and quickly moved into the tech team itself.

At Barclays, Taylor became Head of Governance, focusing on how to make one of the UK’s largest banks more agile in how it delivered technology. It was here she specialised in agile delivery, building minimum viable products, taking them to market quickly, testing and reiterating. It was a shift away from traditional, slow-moving project cycles towards something faster, more adaptive and more aligned with real-world demand.

That mindset would help to shape the foundation of Zippd. When DeliveryApp, the business that would later become Zippd, launched, Taylor brought that same approach into a startup environment. Initially focused on the technology side, she led on how systems were built, how processes were structured and how the business could operate in a way that was both agile and robust.

“It was about taking principles that work at scale in large organisations and making them work in a small, fast-moving business,” Taylor commented. “Building something that could adapt quickly but still stand up to scrutiny.”

As the company evolved, so did her role. From technology into operations, marketing and now broader strategic oversight, Taylor’s position reflects the realities of scaling a business. Today, her focus is on governance, data integrity and ensuring the business operates with the level of discipline required to support global clients, effectively acting as almost an internal auditor while maintaining a strategic view across the organisation.

That evolution mirrors the company’s own transformation. What began as DeliveryApp has grown rapidly, expanding by 186% in three years, and has now rebranded as Zippd to better reflect the scale and nature of its offering. The business has moved beyond a simple delivery solution to become a logistics partner for e-commerce brands and global marketplaces, connecting them to a coordinated network of providers and enabling faster, more flexible fulfilment.

For Taylor, that shift was necessary. “The business outgrew the name,” is how she describes it. “What we do now, the technology, the network, the scale, needs to be reflected in how we present ourselves.”

At its core, Zippd is built on the idea that logistics needs to evolve in line with modern commerce. Traditional, asset-heavy models are struggling to keep up with fragmented supply chains and rising delivery expectations. In response, Zippd connects existing infrastructure into a single, coordinated network, enabling businesses to scale without building their own fleets or warehouses.

It’s a model that closely reflects Taylor’s background in agile delivery. As she puts it, “technology must evolve with the business; it needs to be fast, flexible and robust, while still able to adapt as the business grows.”

That philosophy extends beyond systems into how the company is built. A key part of Taylor’s approach has been bringing in specialists and leaders with deeper expertise as the business scales. “The goal is always to bring in people who are better than you in their field,” she says. “That’s how the business grows by building the right team around it.”

Today, Zippd works with major ecommerce brands and retailers, helping them navigate increasingly complex supply chains and meet rising delivery expectations, without the cost and constraints of traditional logistics models.

For Taylor, and the team at Zippd, the opportunity ahead is clear. Ecommerce is entering a new phase, where delivery is no longer just an operational function, but a core part of the customer experience. The challenge and opportunity lie in building the infrastructure to support that shift.