System Changer Interview: Lauren Currie
“Women are extraordinary. We are not born feeling less than. When we unlearn this feeling, incredible things happen. The problem is big and there’s so much to do. But we’re doing it, and it’s working. Members of our community are advocating for themselves, securing higher salaries, leaving unhealthy relationships, and starting businesses. We’re not reaching 3 million people a month yet, but we will one day.”
Lauren Currie is the Founder of UPFRONT, an organisation dedicated to changing confidence, visibility, and power for 1 million women and non-binary people. She’s also the chairperson of Pregnant Then Screwed, an organisation dedicated to ending maternity discrimination.
Her work has been featured in The Guardian, Design Week, and Creative Review and she’s been awarded an OBE for her services to design and diversity. She’s been named a “Woman Changing the World Under 30” by ELLE magazine, “one of the UK’s Top Business Women Under 35” by Management Today, and "One of the UK's top 50 Creative Leaders" by Creative Review.
Lauren and I met when I hired the organisation she worked for at the time, NOBL, to support a project I was leading at a VC fund. We’ve been friends ever since and I’ve learned a lot from working with her.
I took UPFRONT’s first online course in 2020 when I was emerging from a career break. The experience helped me to re-wire my brain around confidence and visibility and I’ve seen it happening for so many people who join. The success stories give me goosebumps every week.
But UPFRONT is not just impacting individual lives, it’s making waves through families, organisations, communities, industries and culture at large. Lauren is a systems thinker and she has her eyes set on large-scale systemic change when it comes to confidence.
It’s been a joy to see her take UPFRONT from strength to strength, so I’m excited to share her journey with you.
UPFRONT has a great origin story, can you tell us how it came about?
In 2016, I stood on a stage at a conference in Bristol as the only woman speaker in an all male line-up. It happened to me all too often, so, feeling frustrated and keen to do something about it, I put a post-it on the mirror in the women’s toilet at the venue asking whether more women wanted to be on stage, what was stopping them, and to get in touch and tell me about it. It was clear in the response that yes, more people did want to be in the limelight, but fear was holding them back.
So UPFRONT began as a really practical invitation to share the experience of being onstage. We put a couch on stages at events, inviting people to simply see what it felt like to be up there in the lights, in front of big audiences, to help them dress-rehearse the experience.
The UPFRONT couch helped over 500 people to get over stage fright on every continent except Antarctica. The data told us that people who shared the stage on the UPFRONT couch were 30% more likely to speak on stage after their experience.
Encouraged by the results, I then started to run workshops to help people build confidence in lots of different ways, and the momentum has been building since then.
So tell us about UPFRONT today, what do you do?
I went full time in April 2021 after 6 years of side hustling. In 2 years we’ve gone from zero to 1 million pounds in revenue.
We’re a real grown-up organisation with a team of 6, and product market fit! We’re on a mission to change confidence for 1 million women and non-binary people.
We’re doing this in three ways. We provide a six week online course in all things confidence, public speaking and power. We call each cohort a Bond, which is the collective noun for women. We also have an online community called Global Bond which is for women learning to use their power and how to stand up for themselves and for others. And we also create a lot of content. For example, our podcast UPFRONT Moment helps people to kick start their week with self-compassion, confidence and agency.
And how’s it going?
Since our first online course launched in August 2020, we’ve welcomed thousands of women from over 50 countries. The results have been transformational. This still blows my mind! We work with clients like Nike, Just Eat Takeaway, Citizens Advice, The NHS, and Pleo.
Our latest Bond, Bond 6, welcomed 512 women from over 25 different countries. And Global Bond is now home to alumni from Bonds 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 - all committed to learning how to UPFRONT in every area of their life. Our next course, Bond 7, starts in June 2023.
How would you describe your role as a System Changer on this mission? What do you do?
I operate directly in the middle of a venn diagram. On one side we’re teaching women and non-binary how to use the power they already have and on the other side we’re changing the system. This is why our mantra is changing confidence, not women. Women are fine - it’s the system that needs to change.
We’re creating change at a personal level and a community level at the same time. We do this very intentionally in how we work with individuals and teams.
My role is to learn how to be unapologetically myself in my mission and vision for how I want the world to be better. The more I love and look after myself, the greater UPFRONT’s impact is. I have no doubt that the change I seek is possible and I’m the right person to drive that change. Of course, this is bad news for the status quo, so I need to work extra hard at being focused, intentional and building my business my way.
A huge part of my role is listening. Listening to the women we serve, women who have fought this fight before me and women with lived experiences I do not have.
I see myself as an energiser - and I don’t need batteries. The fire I feel for creating this change is extraordinary and it’s my job to build a team who fan those flames, and give people everything they need to start their own fires all over the world. From living rooms to boardrooms and the school gates.
Outside of UPFRONT, I’m chairperson of Pregnant Then Screwed who are doing remarkable work to change policy and make the UK a better place to be a mother.
The impact of your work is far-reaching, how are you driving systemic change?
Oh wow there are so many interesting examples. I’ll share a few that I’m really proud of.
We’re helping working mothers to fight injustice in the workplace. One of our recent graduates, Donna Patterson, recently took her employer Morrisons to court for maternity discrimination, and she won a £60,000 payout. Donna cross-examined eight witnesses on her own, and it took her 5 days. Donna’s confidence isn’t about being loud, or what others say and do. It’s about Donna. It’s the voice in her head that says “I know who I am, I know what I can do.” Donna’s win is huge for our community because so many of us have had our confidence crushed by toxicity, discrimination, and systemic injustice. It’s a huge win for anyone who’s been dismissed, ignored and punished for having a baby.
We’re helping women to feel more empowered in their families. There are countless examples of women in our community who have developed the confidence they need to stand up for themselves in their romantic relationships and to leave toxic relationships. Women have told us they are looking after themselves more, saying no more, asking for more help and more proactively defining the role they actually want in their families. Women are teaching their daughters some of the techniques we teach in the course and that gives us goosebumps.
We’re helping women to engage more actively in politics. Our members are holding the government to account on energy policy, building social change initiatives in their local communities, and getting involved in running political parties.
What does your support system look like?
My main support system is my partner Chris who recently joined UPFRONT and is now our COO. Chris is incredibly smart (a different kind of smart to me) and strategic and logical so he helps me to stay focused on the long term plan. I work with an incredible coach and this year I’ve built a relationship with a mentor, James Routledge, who is now a key pillar in my support system. The Bond supports me in all sorts of amazing ways and they are my invisible army everywhere I go.
What are your superpowers?
I’m incredibly driven and always have been. I am incredibly motivated. I care so much. I feel such a fire in me for this work.
I have three super powers. I help people to feel brave and do things they used to think impossible. I ask for help when I need it. And I have a bias towards action. I’m a doer. This is borne from my design education. I’m extremely action-oriented. I make stuff and put it out there quickly so that I can make it better with feedback.
My values are honesty, imagination, courage, non-conformity, leadership and contribution. These values are my compass and when I’m really living them I feel like a superhero.
What’s in your toolkit?
The Bond is my toolkit. I’m surrounded by ordinary yet extraordinary women. My toolkit has changed dramatically since moving from London to Sweden two years ago. The forest and the lake are a huge source of energy and support. I run and swim most days. And tea - I drink cups of tea all day long.
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned working on this mission?
Women are extraordinary. We are not born feeling less than, it is driven into us at an early age. When we unlearn this feeling incredible things happen.
The problem is big and there’s so much to do. But we’re doing it, and it’s working. Members of our community are advocating for themselves, securing higher salaries, leaving unhealthy relationships, and starting businesses. We’re not reaching 3 million people a month yet, but we will.
What have you learned about yourself doing this work?
The UPFRONT answer to this question is that I’m really fucking good at what I do! Which I would never, ever have said 3 years ago. This work feels easy and right to me. I know I’m in the right place doing the right thing. I’ve learned it’s my personality, my life up until this point and how I see the world that means I am the right person to do this work at this time.
How are you currently working on your personal growth?
I love therapy, coaching, journalling - all of it. It’s not always easy or pleasant but I know it’s non-negotiable if I want to thrive and create the impact I know I’m capable of making. I’ve signed up to run my first marathon next summer so that’s a very live growth project!
What does the world look like in ten years’ time if UPFRONT has been wildly successful?
It’s a world where a lack of confidence and a lack of community is never the reason why a woman doesn’t do the things she wants to do.
What’s next for UPFRONT?
We’re hosting our very first conference in Glasgow on 11th March. I’m so excited and I hope people reading this will join us! Bond 7 launches on 5th June, and we’re hosting Private Bonds for organisations in February.
If you could ask readers to do one thing to support your mission, what would it be?
Come and join us! Taking power is an incredible thing to do. Community, action, and hope are vital right now. We need safe, inclusive spaces where we can be ourselves in all our states of joy, celebration, anger, and activism.
UPFRONT feels like a very warm hug and a kick up the bum at the same time. We’re telling stories, asking questions and building a movement that has generosity, inclusion and kindness at its core. If you choose to spend time with us you will begin to work and think 10, 100, 1000 times bigger.
Sign up for Bond 7 here. Find Lauren online here and listen to the UPFRONT Moment podcast here.