Scaling Up, Staying Home Kath Easthope on empowering UK software founders to build global champions without selling out.

From London to the broader European stage, Kath Easthope, CEO and co-founder of Boardwave - a European community for software founders and CEOs offering mentorship, peer networks, and practical resources - is on a mission to change the game for UK tech leaders. Boardwave demonstrates that ambitious software companies don't have to sell early to succeed globally - they can grow from home, faster, smarter, and with confidence. Following the Boardwave Live 2025 Beyond Disruption: Shape the Future event on 24 September, Entrepreneur UK sits down with Easthope to explore her vision.

For those who aren't familiar - what is Boardwave, and how is it supporting the next generation of UK software leaders?
Boardwave is a European community of software leaders, bringing together more than 2,400 founders, CEOs, and senior executives across SaaS, AI, and software. Our mission is simple: to help Europe's next generation of software leaders scale faster, smarter, and with greater confidence.

We connect and support founders with seasoned operators and peers who have already navigated the journey from start-up to global scale. Each of our members bring something different to the network whether that's knowledge and advice, mentoring and even connections to capital. The 'no-ego' ethos of the community is incredible to watch in action, and the generous spirit of our members, alongside the vast programme we've built, helps to create growth and scaling opportunities flow more freely for businesses across Europe.

Boardwave is a social enterprise focused on community and the mission, over profit. Membership is completely free for approved software CEOs and founders, funded by more than 80 blue-chip partners who share the costs and support our vision.

How is the company actively helping UK software founders build confidence and capabilities to scale here, rather than looking to exit abroad?
Too often, founders and CEOs feel their only route to global growth is to sell early to a US buyer. Boardwave exists to change that mindset. We provide European leaders with access to mentorship, strategic guidance, and cross-border connections so they can build confidence in scaling independently from UK and European soil. For example, our peer-to-peer mentoring platform connects emerging founders with leaders who have taken companies through IPOs or billion-dollar exits.

We also run regular Boardwave Breakout groups designed to create small groups of like minded CEOs, and Founders, who we take on a 12 month development journey, with access to some of the world's leading technology professionals. Members are also invited to take part in our Boardwave Masterclasses, currently a seven part series including topics from 'scaling sales and optimising your exit' to 'practical AI' and 'product strategy'. The sessions deliver strategic insights and actionable guidance, as well as downloadable tools and templates, and are created from the ground up by founders and CEOs with relevant lived experience.

By demystifying the challenges of scaling and providing tangible playbooks, we're helping founders see that it is possible to build enduring, globally competitive businesses here. We know that there is a high likelihood that the challenge our early stage founders are facing today, is one that a more experienced CEO or founder of an established company will have faced in the past.

What do you see as the biggest structural barriers stopping UK-born tech companies from becoming global leaders from home soil?
Our recent joint research with McKinsey found that Europe's software sector consistently underperforms on growth compared to the US. For example, ARR growth here is just 55% of the US benchmark. For UK and European founders, several structural barriers stand in the way. Access to later-stage growth capital is still limited, making it harder to fund aggressive international expansion. The market itself is fragmented, with complex regulations slowing the pace of scale compared to the more unified US landscape. And finally, many founders simply don't have access to experienced operators who have already built and scaled large software businesses, leaving them without the guidance needed to break through these barriers. These barriers combine to create what we call "growth bottlenecks",even with brilliant products, UK companies too often stall before they can become global champions.

Many founders still feel that scaling in the UK means eventually selling to a US buyer - how can we shift that mindset?

We need to prove, through lived examples, that global category leaders can be grown and built here. That means celebrating the success stories, but also providing the infrastructure and support that makes independent scaling viable. At our annual conference Boardwave Live, Dame Julia Hoggett, CEO of the London Stock Exchange (LSE), spoke at a pre-event dinner with some of our members. She talked at length about the need to reignite Britain's passion for investing, her vision to modernise and open up the UK's markets and pointed to capital and culture as the country's untapped strengths. We share the belief in the software sector that if we "invest in ourselves," the UK could look radically different in just five years.

At Boardwave, we champion the founders who have resisted early exits and gone on to build enduring, globally-leading companies. With the right support system, the emerging companies, and those with enormous international potential, can have the confidence to see themselves not as acquisition targets, but as global competitors.

What role should investors, policymakers, and operators each play in building a stronger UK scale-up ecosystem?
Investors, policymakers, and operators each have a vital role to play if we want the UK to compete on a global stage. For investors, this is about going beyond the early rounds and providing deeper pools of growth capital, especially at Series C and beyond.

Too many promising founders end up selling early simply because they can't access the funding needed to expand internationally. Policymakers, meanwhile, need to make it easier for innovation to scale across borders. The UK and Europe have huge strengths, but market fragmentation and complex regulations slow companies down, streamlining that environment would make a real difference. And then there are the operators: the people who have already built, scaled, and exited businesses. Their experience is invaluable. Whether it's mentoring, advising, or joining scale-ups directly, they can help founders avoid common pitfalls and accelerate growth. It's only when all three - capital, policy, and knowledge sharing - come together that UK and European tech can truly compete on a level playing field with the US and China.

For a first-time UK founder eyeing global expansion, what's the single most important strategic decision they can make early on?
For a first-time UK founder eyeing global expansion, the most important decision is to design for scale from the very beginning, not just aim for product:market fit. Too many founders underestimate how quickly they'll need to internationalise, whether that's structuring go-to-market functions for global reach, building compliance into systems that work across multiple jurisdictions, or hiring leadership with genuine global experience.

The companies that succeed are those that bake scaling into their DNA early on, while also cultivating a growth mindset and staying mission-driven. That combination: thinking big, learning fast, and keeping the long-term mission at the centre, gives founders the resilience and clarity they need to navigate the inevitable challenges of global expansion.

Looking ahead, what's the one shift you'd most like to see in the UK tech ecosystem over the next five years?
I'd like to see the UK move to a genuine global hub of scale-ups that go the distance. That means more UK-born companies reaching IPO on home soil, more founders choosing to stay independent, and more stories of UK software leaders setting the global standard. If we can unlock that shift, we not only grow stronger companies, we grow an ecosystem that continually reinvests experience, capital, and confidence back into the next generation of founders.