Monzo Staff Weekly Q&A - Naji Esiri (Community Manager) 🎉

[simonb]

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Note : All Monzo Q&As to date can be found here

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Forum family, what a start to the week, eh?

Just in case you missed it… we announced our upcoming crowdfunding round! Hit the blog for all the answers.

accurate depiction of many Monzo users right now

There’s lots of reasons we’ve got to where we are now. Lots of things that Make Monzo Amazing.
But there’s one common thread that runs through all of those things.

That’s you! Our wonderful, passionate community You are part of our success, and we wouldn’t be here without you. After all, we’re not making a bank for just ourselves. We’re making it for everyone. Something you’re proud to tell your friends and family about because it’s genuinely delightful and helpful. If you’ve ever attended a Monzo event or social, posted here on the forum (or about us elsewhere!), or given us feedback (good or bad!), you’re all part of our vibrant community, and we appreciate all of you. From talking to many of you all over the country and here on our forum, the consistent thing we hear is that our community is one of the things that makes us stand out.

So, with that in mind, it’s almost time to introduce our Q&A star of the week!

BUT FIRST I WROTE A HAIKU

before you proceed
it’s important that you catch
up with previous q&as

*Click here to see all previous Q&As*

Week 1 : Chris MacLean, Customer Operations & Vulnerable Customers

Week 2 : James Nicholson, iOS Engineer

Week 3 : Tara Mansfield, People Operations Manager

Week 4 : James Routley, Backend Engineer

Week 5 : Hugh Wells, Customer Operations

Week 6 : Naz Malik, Technical Specialist

Week 7 : Fred Morgan, COps Squad Captain (Calls & Social Media)

Week 8 : Emma Northcott, COps Scaling Team

Week 9 : Jarno Wolf, COps Financial Crime Specialist & Squad Captain

Week 10 : Maria Campbell, Head of People

Week 11 : Jim Amey, Night COps Captain

Week 12 : Richard Cook, Online Community Manager

Week 13 : Beatrice Borbon, Content & Press Manager

Week 14 : Tom Blomfield, CEO

Week 15 : Ella Johanny, COps/Hiring

Week 16 : Harry Ashbridge, Writer

Week 17 : Beth Scott, Overnight COps

Week 18 : Georgie Parmenter, Executive Assistant to the Founders

Week 19 : Vulnerable Customers Team

Week 20 : Leah Templeman, Interim VP People

Week 21 : Daniel Chatfield, Backend Engineer, Fincrime & Security

Week 22 : Valerio Magliulo, Product Manager - Revenue Team

Week 23 : Sam Watkin, Operations Analyst

Week 24 : Kieran McHugh, Backend Engineer

Week 25 : Jonas Huckestein, Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer

Week 26 : Annual Report Edition with Tristan Thomas and Julie Oey

Week 27 : Zander Brade, Lead Product Designer

Week 28 : Richard Dingwall, Payments Engineer

Week 29 : Oliver Beattie, Head of Engineering (Reliability Report Special)

Week 30 : Bruno Vaz Moço, Product Manager (Scalers)

Week 31 : Dillon Van Auken, Remote COps Team Lead and Vegas Project Team Lead 🂡

Week 32 : Rhys Davies, COps Cardiff Office

Week 33 : Emily Parrett, COps Call & The Gang

Week 34 : Liam Houghton, Ops Fixer

Week 35 : Frances Coyle, Legal Team

Week 36 : Shak Welch, COps Fincrime Specialist

Week 37 : Sarah Allen, People Operations

Week 38 : Simon B, COps Community Specialist

Week 39 : Natalie Price, Visual Designer

Week 40 : George Webster, Night Cop

Week 41 : Brenda Wong, COps, Call & The Gang

Week 42 : Niamh Power, Mobile Engineer (Android and iOS)

Week 43 : Vuokko Aro, Lead Product Designer

Week 44 : Meri Williams, CTO

Week 45 : James Clyburn, COps Activity Lead

Week 46 : Jacq Bridge, Ops Support Analyst

This week, in the Hot Coral Hot Seat™️ we’ve got none other than our awesome Community Manager, Naji Esiri!!! (@naji)

I’m sure that many of you have seen or spoken to Naji at some of the events we’ve held over the last couple of years, and if so, you’ll have noted just how dedicated he is to bridging the gap between what’s happening in the company and involving the wider community

Naji has been here since September 2016 and is currently working on :

“Planning bigger and better events for 2019 and looking at ways for us to share what we’re working on across the wider community.”

He’s also recently been one of the main drivers behind our new interactive “Making Monzo” roadmap that’s visible in the app!

Fun Fact About Naji!

“I can play the alto sax!”

His favourite thing about working at Monzo?

“Connecting the wonderful folk who make up our community with each other.”

So, you know what to do!

Get your questions in and Naji will be here to answer them later this week!

[evangelskies (Eve)]

What is it like being this amazing?

What is your typical day like as a community manager?

Out of all the talks and community meetups you’ve done outside Monzo HQ, which one has been most memorable, and why? Any funny stories to share?

And finally: when are you going to change your dinky little profile pic that looks nothing like how you do in real life? can I task someone @ Monzo to get him to change this?

[Peter_G]

Hey @naji

Can you tell us a bit more about the Community team and who does what? I think it’s you, Richard, Tristan and Yen, no?

Also what’s been your highlight/standout moment at Monzo?

Thanks in advance!

[rarther]

Hi Naji,

Does it bug you that only about 2% (10 or so?) of the Monzo staff regularly post on the community forum without being dragged in kicking and screaming? Is it okay that most employees don’t engage with the community aspect, or do you feel this assumption is wrong? (Maybe there are 490 lurking monzonauts).

Thanks a lot!

[Dannytc]

Planning bigger events? Can we expect a hot coral festival to rival Glasto?

Serious question, Did you always plan to go into this type of role?

[jzw95]

Has the massive increase in the community (users) since September 2016 changed how you approach managing the community, and if so, how?

Do you feel you’ll be able to scale the in-person events as Monzo grows within the UK? And have you thought about how you will scale them when Monzo eventually expands internationally?

And finally, thanks for all your hard work building a welcoming and active community right from the early days – without it, I don’t think Monzo would have the amazing community it does now!

[Jackcrwhitney (Jack)]

@simonb

Planning bigger and better events for 2019 and looking at ways for us to share what we’re working on across the wider community.”

• Are you able to give us any sneak peaks?

• What are your criteria for determining if an event is successful? Do you have set goals for each one?

[SC95]

Hi Naji

How many people you manage and what kind of manager you think you are? What are your future plans for the community growth and get more Monzo users involved because at the moment if we look at Monzo user growth that’s amazing but the community here is not growing at the similar rate. I know not everyone will join online communities but it is still lacking the same upward trend as user number.

[anon4562461]

How are you coping with not seeing me as often? Sadly don’t have time for monzo events these days

What’s your go to karaoke song?

[HoddzDJ]

Naji… my hero

What’s your go-to breakfast to set you up for the day?

[Naji (Naji Esiri)]

Hi everyone! Thanks for all the great questions! I’m going to do my best to answer them

@evangelskies

What is it like being this amazing?

I’m yet to find out, let me know

@Peter_G

Also what’s been your highlight/standout moment at Monzo?

Probably the ‘Better Banking Matters’ event we hosted at the end of October. There have been a few special moments where I have been completely stunned by the openness of attendees and their willingness to share their stories and thoughts on topics which aren’t easy to talk about (even with close friends and family, let alone a group of strangers!)

Vulnerability is a very abstract term - many people will experience a period in their lives when they may be classed as vulnerable. There was something really powerful about bringing people from all walks of life together to try and understand the real life issues which arise during these difficult times and how we can do a better job at supporting people through this, not just as Monzo. but as a society. It’s also really amazing to know these conversations will form the foundation for some of the awesome things the vulnerable customers team will be working on in the next couple months and beyond This is definitely the most rewarding part of my job.

@evangelskies

Out of all the talks and community meetups you’ve done outside Monzo HQ, which one has been most memorable, and why? Any funny stories to share?

Oh wow! Liverpool and Edinburgh are always good to us! Love hosting events there. We had great time in Newcastle too @paul sent me this message 90 minutes before the event began

All you need to know is he made it in time for his talk! What a hero

The time me and @samw went to Glasgow for literally 2 hours was pretty full on too!

@rarther

Does it bug you that only about 2% (10 or so?) of the Monzo staff regularly post on the community forum without being dragged in kicking and screaming?

No not really! I think early on i had an unreasonable expectation of how involved the wider team should be on the community forum; they all have other jobs to do unlike us! Overall everyone is super supportive and really behind what we’re doing - I’m also really happy that when the team do post it’s because they feel they can add some real value or insight, or they genuinely need the help of the community to make a decision. I certainly feel like the wider team are ‘sold in’ to why community is important and how your perspectives can help us find better solutions to the problems we’re facing. A special shout out to @simonb @kieranmch @Jami @tjvr for all their updates and contributions!

@Dannytc

Did you always plan to go into this type of role?

No! I studied Marketing at uni, worked in retail, for PR companies and set up my own menswear store online for a while before coming here! Applying was a bit of a wild card for me, but really happy that i did!

@jzw95

Do you feel you’ll be able to scale the in-person events as Monzo grows within the UK? And have you thought about how you will scale them when Monzo eventually expands internationally?

The second part of this question really excites me, but in all honesty I haven’t really thought about this in much detail.

There are two main ways I see us scaling events as we grow.

1. To foster connections between community members with common interests and great ideas, and to support them in organising their own events and meetups independently.
   2.Bringing the best of the event to your front room, whether that’s a super high quality live stream where you can ask questions in real time or a 15 minute podcast summary of the event you missed a few nights ago. Most importantly, this live and post event content needs to be easy to find, tune in and get involved.

@Jackcrwhitney

What are your criteria for determining if an event is successful? Do you have set goals for each one?

This is an interesting one!

Each event has an objective tied to a team or company goal in some way. For example it could be to extend our reach to a new audience, raise awareness and drive interest in something we’re working on, or to encourage and inspire people to apply to work for us!

We take some time every couple of weeks to debrief and look at relevant measures of success such as social shares or ratio of new attendees against returning.

Higher level team specific goals for events generally focus on how we can become an even more significant supporting pillar to other business goals. It’s important for us to sync up on the month’s events and quarterly goals regularly to ensure we’re working towards the right things.

One of our goals this quarter has been decide on some useful qualitative metrics to use as KPI’s for events. To help determine what’s useful, I put together a doc with all the numbers we have on Monzo hosted events this year.

@anon4562461

How are you coping with not seeing me as often? Sadly don’t have time for monzo events these days

What’s your go to karaoke song?

1.Really badly
2. I’ve only done karaoke once, I never understood why people enjoyed it. But once I got that mic in hand, the rest was history. Depending on the audience it has to Robbie Williams She’s The One or Nelly Hot In Herre. Give the fans what they want.

@HoddzDJ

What’s your go-to breakfast to set you up for the day?

I actually only started eating breakfast when I joined Monzo! Nice bit of fruit, maybe an M&S cheese scone if the mood takes me, and an innocent juice! I’m usually hungry again by 11

[simonb]

Amazing Q&A!!! Cheers @Naji