As we approach International Women’s Day and this year’s theme, Give to Gain, we are exploring what growth really looks like. Across Tide, that means speaking with some of our inspiring members about what they have invested in order to build their businesses. Make sure you’re following our social channels so you don’t miss these stories as they launch throughout the week.
It also means reflecting on leadership inside Tide.
In this edition of our Meet the team series, we speak with Lauren Henry, our VP Engineering. As Tide has expanded across markets, her role has grown alongside it. We talk about women in leadership, evolving ambition, and what it takes to build meaningful impact at scale. Lauren reflects on leading through growth, building teams with clarity and trust, and designing technology that gives our members more time and confidence to grow.
Hi Lauren, can you share what your role at Tide actually requires of you day to day? What are you accountable for?
I lead our engineering organisation with a focus on delivering our personalised member experience. Day to day, that means helping teams navigate priorities, translating them into scalable technical solutions, and ensuring we are building in a way that supports long term growth.
I spend a lot of time thinking about how our architecture, ways of working and technical decisions enable the product strategy rather than constrain it. I am accountable not just for delivery, but for the health of the organisation itself. That includes how we grow capability, how we make decisions, and how we build software that can support multiple markets and increasing complexity over time.
As your career has progressed at Tide, how has your approach to leadership and accountability changed?
I have been at Tide for four years, and the company has grown significantly in that time. We started focused on the UK and have since launched in India, Germany and France. That shift in scale has required a shift in how I lead.
Earlier on, leadership was more hands on and tactical. As we have grown, my focus has moved towards delivering scalable solutions, thinking about our platform as a product in its own right, and designing systems that work across markets. Thinking globally has changed how I approach decisions. It is less about solving for today in isolation and more about building foundations that will hold as we continue to expand.
Has your relationship with ambition or growth shifted at this stage of your career?
Earlier in my career, I measured ambition largely through career progression and the level of effort I put in. I believed that if I worked hard enough and delivered consistently, that would naturally translate into growth.
Over time, I have learned that individual effort is only part of the equation. Sustainable growth comes from bringing others with you. I actively seek advocates who can represent me in rooms I am not in. I invest time in mentoring people earlier in their careers, which keeps my perspective sharp and grounded. I have also built a group of peers whose judgement I trust and who challenge my thinking.
Ambition now feels less like something you prove alone and more like something you build through relationships, trust, and shared momentum.
This year’s International Women’s Day theme is Give to Gain. Looking at your career and life more broadly, what is something you have had to give up or give deeply to in order to get where you are today?
I have consistently invested in developing teams where there is clarity, trust and line of sight on priorities. That includes giving frequent feedback, having hard conversations when needed, and being open to different perspectives. I have also invested in mentoring and being mentored. Having people who help me see what I am missing has been essential to my development.
For me, growth is not about sacrifice. It is about being willing to look beyond old ideas and continuously evolve.
What has it been like navigating transitions or periods of uncertainty in your role at Tide?
Periods of transition remove the comfort of unlimited time. When uncertainty increases, you are forced to decide what truly matters and address issues directly rather than postponing them.
I have found that those moments create a sharper sense of purpose. You cannot move the problem forward or hope it resolves itself. You have to confront the root issue and choose a direction. While those periods can be uncomfortable, they often accelerate alignment and progress in a way that steady state does not.
Which Tide policies or ways of working have genuinely enabled you to lead at your best?
Flexible working arrangements have made a meaningful difference because they allow me to structure my time intentionally. I can prioritise in person collaboration when it adds the most value and protect time for strategic thinking and cross region alignment.
That flexibility helps me show up more effectively for my teams and ensures I am present both in the day to day and in the longer term thinking required to deliver a strong member experience.
You are building your own career here, but you are also building something for our members. When you think about women running businesses with Tide, what do you hope they gain from the work you and your team do?
My team is focused on delivering a contextual member experience, presenting the right thing at the right time so our members can make their day to day easier.
For women running businesses, I hope that means fewer distractions and more confidence. If we can reduce friction and surface what matters most inside the product, we give them back time and mental space to focus on growing their businesses.
What makes you proud to work here right now?
After almost four years at Tide, I am proud of how far we have come. We have grown from operating in the UK to serving members across India, Germany and France, and we have built the technical and organisational foundations to support that scale.
I am equally proud of the growth I have seen in the people around me. Watching Tideans step into leadership roles and supporting that progression has been one of the most rewarding parts of my time here. It is meaningful to be part of an organisation that continues to scale while investing in its people.
About Tide:
Launched in 2017, Tide is the leading business management platform in the UK. Tide helps small businesses save time and money by not only offering business accounts and related admin services, but also a comprehensive set of highly usable and connected administrative solutions from invoicing to accounting and adjacent commercial services such as web-site building.
Tide has nearly 800,000 SME members in the UK (14% market share) and more than 1 million SMEs in India. Tide launched in Germany in May 2024 and France in September 2025.
Tide has also been recognised with the Great Place to Work certification three years in a row. Tide has been funded by Anthemis, the Apax Digital Funds, Augmentum Fintech, Creandum, Salica Investments, Latitude, LocalGlobe, SBI Group, Speedinvest and TPG, amongst others. It employs more than 2,500 Tideans worldwide. Tide’s long-term ambition is to be the leading business management platform globally.
Curious about working at Tide? Explore opportunities on our Careers Page.
