As a freelancer I’m deeply interested in those who are building better working environment for gig workers like me, so I reached out to Jack Thorogood, CEO Native teams — a leading global platform that offers streamlined solutions for work payments, employment, tax & wealth management, and mobility services. With an impressive track record of over 11 years, Jack excels in software development and remote team management. His passion for innovation and dedication to fostering collaborative environments have played a key role in the success of numerous projects. Combining a solid sales foundation with technical prowess, Jack brings a unique entrepreneurial insight to the table.
What inspired you to start Native Teams?
It really started with a problem we experienced ourselves. Alex, my co-founder, and I both faced challenges with work payments, taxes, and the friction that often exists between talent and opportunity – especially when working internationally.
What drew me to Native Teams was how tangible it is. We’re addressing something very real and practical: helping people get more value from the work they do while removing unnecessary barriers.
At the same time, I was searching for the right business to build with Alex. Native Teams was the perfect fit for both of us – a chance to solve meaningful problems while building something rooted in our shared vision.
How has your leadership journey shaped the company’s vision?
Most directly, I can say that the business absolutely carries the DNA of Alex and me. If I look at the culture we’ve built and the approach we’ve taken – for example, putting values and decency ahead of money – then it is true to what we set out to achieve.
Of course, it ‘takes a village’ and it ceased to just be the business Alex and I wanted to build and shape since the moment we began to work with a wider team. I hope it’s true that we continue to guide the business through our actions, though.
Who were your key mentors throughout your career, and how have they influenced your leadership style?
Right back when I was 13 and grew up working on the farm with my dad, I learned about the importance of hard work. My mum was also a key mentor in a way because my parents divorced when I was young, and having two single parents with very different outlooks on life made me realise you have to hear all arguments and then take the best path forward for you.
For the last year and a bit, I’ve had an excellent mentor, Hristo Manov, (
Finally, my co-founder Alex is the best mentor I could have asked for. If it wasn’t for the debt I feel I owe Alex for joining me on this journey with Native Teams, I’d either have quit or at least not pushed so hard. The outcomes would have been immeasurably worse in those scenarios.
What strategies do you use to foster trust and collaboration within a remote team?
The best way to build trust in a remote team is not to always be ‘remote’! Once a year, we have an all-hands in-person weekend, and for a month, we rent a couple of villas and have as many people as possible work from there for a couple of nights.
We also do all we can to actively encourage friendships to blossom. The more people are working with friends whose company they enjoy, the more they’ll be accountable and give their best.
How important is mentorship for freelancers and remote workers, and how does Native Teams address this need?
In my opinion it is vital if you want people to be the best they can be, for their benefit as well as ours. We run a series of external and internal mentorship programmes for our team. Finding the right people to be mentors isn’t always easy, but it’s possible with some hard work and patience.
The best advice I had about helping find the right mentor is to ask the mentee where they want to be in 5+ years and then find a mentor with the profile that is already there.
How can experienced professionals in tech better mentor the next generation of freelancers and remote workers?
This is only half-right as a question to ask. My answer to it is that potential mentors should realise that they have a lot to give. It is easy for people to have ‘imposter syndrome’ and to, therefore undervalue their worth as a potential mentor.
The other half of the question, though, is how professionals in tech can be better mentees. In my opinion – and I can say this from personal experience when I was much younger – people don’t always have the self-awareness to realise how much a mentor would benefit them. This should change!
How do you see leadership evolving as remote work becomes more prevalent worldwide?
I see a more progressive, trusting and less egotistical form of leadership emerging as remote work becomes more prevalent.
The ‘return to the office’ approach is really favoured by less trusting, more micro-managing leaders who can’t let their people go free to fly.
It’s inevitable that more and more companies will embrace remote work – even if there are a few high-profile return-to-the-office types – and therefore, the requirements of trust, flexibility and confidence in your team to do the right thing will become more to the fore.
What role does technology play in enabling effective mentorship and leadership for remote teams?
Technology, of course, plays a pivotal role in enabling effective mentorship and leadership. Without tools such as video meeting software, text chat (e.g. Slack) and cloud-based project management tools then modern leadership for modern teams cannot work.
The chat and video tools are obvious of course, but a solid project management tool such as Asana is the best way to help people stay on track and for everyone to be abreast of progress.
How is Native Teams helping to shape the future of work for freelancers and remote professionals?
Every time we help a freelancer or remote worker engage with a client or employer with less friction, which we do via the payment tools and employment options we can provide, we can call that a win for remote workers.
We help our users work on more exciting projects (by removing international barriers), and we help them keep more of the money they earn (by looking after their tax-free allowances and tax-efficient remuneration).
Fundamentally, we help our users get all the best of remote work opportunities with the benefits, for example a local employment contract, of a non-remote career.
What steps are you taking to ensure diversity and inclusion within Native Teams and the freelancer community you serve?
We founded the business with this premise: I knew that if I founded the business with Alex – a girl from a different country and perspective – we’d have a far better business than if there wasn’t a diversity of views.
Since then, we have taken steps to ensure that not only does the business have a great diversity of gender and ethnicity, but we also reward that fairly. For example, this means monitoring salaries to check that women and men are paid the same average salary.
I cannot stress the value that diversity brings to the business: Over and above our gender parity, since we decided to build out our core team in India and the Philippines, as well as in Europe, we have only become a stronger and better business.
How does Native Teams build a sense of community among freelancers and remote workers?
We are beginning to offer some of the best-practice we have within our business to bear with our wider user base. This includes informal dinners and drinks, and also a ‘work from a location as part of a wider group’ approach. These have been great for us as a company, and we’re sure our users will benefit from this, too.
What advice would you give to aspiring leaders in the tech industry, especially those focused on remote work?
Work hard and be persistent. Lead by example and be open-minded. Trust people. They might
Source: From Freelancer to a CEO with a Freelance Perspective with Jack Thorogood | HackerNoon
