Creating Cultures That Enable Individuals To Be Their True Self with Ruth Penfold

Today’s guest is the brilliant Ruth Penfold, People VP at Onfido.

Onfido uses machine learning to help companies verify the identity of their users online.

Founded in 2012 the business has gone from strength to strength and earlier this year raised $50 million in a funding round led by SoftBank Investments and Salesforce ventures.

Ruth is a phenomenal leader in the people and talent space and as People VP and part of the executive team at Onfido she is responsible for all aspects of their people strategy. Helping their ever-growing team to manage the people and recruitment challenges that come with a rapidly growing tech business. As Ruth says, her role is to create the right environment for the people of tomorrow, whilst retaining the people for today.

Prior to joining Onfido Ruth was the head of talent acquisition at Shazam, responsible for managing their global recruitment as they went from start up, to scale up, to a household name.

In this conversation we go into detail on Ruth’s journey with both Shazam and Onfido and discuss her experience of helping to scale two disruptive tech firms, how she is focused on creating cultures that enable individuals to bring their true self to work and how she has tackled the challenges that come with scale up life.

In addition to her high-flying tech career Ruth is also a practicing yoga instructor and writes a regular blog. Her approach to balancing the different aspects of her life and ensuring she makes time for the things she enjoys is really unique and Ruth shares some great advice on how she does this in today’s show.

If you’re looking to understand how to grow your own tech business, explore ways to make your firm more inclusive, or just looking for some inspirational mentorship from one of the most engaging and honest leaders that I’ve met – this conversation is a must listen!