George B. Thomas
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Lauren Ryan has that rare mix of heart and horsepower. She can talk about legacy and mentorship one minute, then walk you through complex systems the next. And somehow, it all connects, because her whole story is really about one thing: choosing people first, including herself.
In this Women of HubSpot episode, I sat down with Lauren Ryan, a HubSpot professional who built her career around HubSpot long before she ever worked at HubSpot. She started as a psychology major, learned the tools on the job, and kept following the work that felt both human and meaningful.
Lauren shows you how to turn a painful moment into a clean pivot, how to build technical confidence without losing your people skills, and how to measure success by the impact you leave behind.
The moment that changed everything
Some moments do not just shake you. They wake you up. Lauren worked at the Apple store on Boylston Street in Boston. On the day of the Boston Marathon, she took the day off, went to the finish line, then stepped into the store for what should have been a normal break.
What happened next shifted her perspective in a way that never fully went back to “normal.”
She put it into a sentence that hits you right in the chest: “Life is too short. I am done thinking about these little stressors”. That was not a motivational quote. That was a decision.
It was the beginning of a new pattern in her life. Lauren stopped letting stress and other people’s expectations steer the wheel. She started paying attention to what actually mattered, then making moves that matched.
That same muscle showed up again later when she faced a toxic manager, realized her well-being mattered more than the job, and chose the bold road. “I quit my job, and I started coastal consulting that day.”
No perfect plan. No safety net. Just a clear line in the sand and the courage to honor it.
How she leads, builds, and uses HubSpot
Lauren’s story is proof that “technical” and “human” do not have to live in separate rooms.
Early on, she learned HubSpot and Salesforce as an intern while working for a 3D printing company. She did not expect that moment to become the foundation of her career, but it did. She kept leaning into the overlap between psychology, marketing, and business, and she discovered something that became a personal superpower: taking complex systems and explaining them in a way real humans can actually use.
That skill was put to the test when she took on a role at HubSpot, where she was hired and then had to learn a different marketing platform from scratch. She taught herself coding, Structured Query Language, and how to integrate systems in a heavily regulated environment.
She did the work. She brought the data.
She asked for compensation that matched the value she delivered. And she learned, in a painful way, what it feels like when leadership does not recognize growth. Instead of letting that moment shrink her, she used it to shape the kind of leader she wants to be.
Then she built a consulting company and grew it fast.
She learned lessons the way entrepreneurs often do, by living them in real time. One of the hardest came in December of 2022, when a large client refused to pay for a month. With a team depending on her and limited reserves, she had to lay people off. “The day that I had to lay off the majority of my team was probably the worst day of my adult life.”
If you have ever been a business owner, you understand the weight of that sentence. But here is what matters. She did not let that break her. She learned. She recovered.
And she got even clearer about the kind of structure she needs in this season of life, especially as a mom.
She also built something she is deeply proud of: an educational course for the HubSpot and Salesforce integration. She poured hundreds of hours into it, brought her team together for a week of filming, and created a resource designed to help people who needed answers but could not afford a full agency engagement.
That is Lauren in a nutshell. Build the thing that helps the next person take the next step. Connect with Lauren Ryan on LinkedIn.
The lesson she wants you to carry forward
Lauren has a clear definition of empowerment, and it is not fluffy. It is practical.
To her, empowerment looks like giving people tools, then standing beside them while they use those tools to grow. She credits one of her mentors for doing exactly that, teaching her how to build a pipeline, run discovery calls, and keep moving through hard seasons with someone in her corner.
That is also why she believes mentorship should be normal, not rare. Not a special perk. A standard part of how we support women in business.
She also believes you need to share what you know. Not later. Now.
Her advice to other women coming into this space is simple: become a creator. Use writing, video, or short posts to put your thinking into the world. Learn to translate big technical ideas into clear human language. In a world full of tools, the ability to connect the dots for people is priceless.
And when you zoom all the way out, Lauren measures success in a way that feels grounded and timeless. “Success to me is how people speak about you when you're not in the room.”
That is legacy.
That is the kind of success that outlives a job title.
