Leading Beyond the Title: Driving Quality Through Influence | 3rd Sydney Meetup
The Test Tribe 3rd Sydney Meetup – Leading Beyond the Title: Driving Quality Through Influence
Leadership in Quality Engineering isn't always about having a title or direct authority. In complex organisations, some of the most important quality decisions happen through collaboration, trust, communication, and the ability to influence teams toward a shared outcome.
Join The Test Tribe's 3rd Sydney Meetup for a practical session on leading through influence learning how to build credibility, gain stakeholder buy-in, navigate disagreements, and drive quality even when you don't have the authority to simply tell people what to do.
Event Details
Date: 01 October 2026
Time: 05:00 PM – 07:00 PM AEDT
Venue: Meeting Room BM.01 — PHIVE Parramatta
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Session – Leading Beyond the Title: Driving Quality Through Influence
Why This Session Matters
Not every leadership opportunity comes with a leadership title. In many technology organisations, driving quality requires professionals to influence decisions, bring teams together, gain stakeholder buy-in, and create momentum across functions often without having direct authority.
In this session, Anu Ponugoti will explore practical ways to lead through influence and create impact beyond formal roles. Drawing from her experience leading QA initiatives and working across product, engineering, and business functions, she'll share approaches for building trust, handling disagreements, communicating with different stakeholders, taking ownership, and making quality a shared responsibility.
How This Meetup Solves Your Problem
Driving quality across teams can be challenging when you don't have direct authority. This meetup will help you:
Understand the difference between authority and influence and why effective leadership doesn't always require a formal title.
Learn practical techniques to build trust, influence decisions, and gain buy-in from peers and stakeholders.
Discover ways to take ownership and demonstrate leadership in your day-to-day role.
Learn how to navigate disagreements, competing priorities, and cross-team collaboration without relying on hierarchy.
Build the confidence to advocate for quality and create momentum across teams.
Why Show Up on 01 October?
Because leadership isn't limited to people with "lead" or "manager" in their job title.
Because you'll learn practical ways to influence quality decisions without relying on hierarchy.
Because you'll discover how trust, communication, and credibility can help you drive meaningful change.
Because you'll connect with QA professionals, Quality Engineers, testers, and technology practitioners from the Sydney community.
Because your perspective belongs in the conversation.
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About The Test Tribe
The Test Tribe is the world's largest software testing community, empowering testers globally since 2018. With 925+ events and 170K+ members across 130+ countries, we bring software professionals together to learn, grow, and connect through meetups, conferences, cohorts, masterclasses, and more.
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