The thing I do best is name what's already visible to you.
Most organisational problems aren't unsolvable. They're unnamed. Once you have language for what's happening, the actual pattern underneath the friction, you can build a system that responds to it.
I've built products inside complex organisations: SEEK, Go1, Envato, Smiling Mind. The problems varied. The pattern underneath them didn't. That's the Product Operating Model: not the org chart or the process map, but the deeper system that determines whether an organisation can actually see what's happening, decide well, and deliver. When that system works, the commercial results follow. So does the culture. And what customers experience.
I also work at board level, as a non-executive director, governance contributor, and technical advisor on product, AI, and digital transformation.
How we can work together
Working inside the system with you
For leadership teams navigating something genuinely unfamiliar: an AI transition, a product reset, a strategy that needs to become real inside a complex organisation. I work alongside you over weeks or months, not as an external consultant filing a report, but as a thinking partner who has been inside enough of these systems to recognise which patterns matter and where the work actually sits. I join the thinking, name what's happening, and help design a way forward that holds.
Suits: Executive and senior leadership teams mid-transition, organisations navigating AI integration, product resets, or operating model redesigns.
A defined engagement with a clear output
When you need a structured external perspective and a concrete deliverable. I design and run diagnostics that surface where the operating model is breaking down: where AI is creating new decision gaps, where the system has gone invisible, where clarity keeps getting deferred. Each engagement is shaped around your specific situation. Not a template applied. A session that ends with the next real step named and owned.
Suits: Teams that need a focused diagnostic, operating model clarity, AI integration thinking, or a strategy session that actually leads somewhere.
Making the invisible visible, for a room
I speak at leadership offsites, executive forums, and conferences on the patterns that shape organisations: why good ideas get ignored, what the Product Operating Model actually looks like in practice, and what genuine foresight looks like in an AI-shaped world. Each talk is drawn directly from the essays and from 20+ years of doing this work from the inside.
Suits: Leadership offsites, people and culture forums, product and strategy conferences.
See speaking topicsBringing product and technology clarity to the board table
Boards are making consequential decisions about AI, digital transformation, and platform strategy, often without a director who has actually lived those decisions from the inside. I bring 20+ years of executive product and operations experience into the governance conversation: the pattern recognition that comes from navigating these transitions at scale, and the ability to think clearly about what genuinely isn't known yet. I help boards ask better questions about the futures they are choosing between.
Suits: Boards seeking a non-executive director, technical board advisor, or advisory committee member in technology, education, wellbeing, or social impact.
What people say
Layla has a rare blend of strategic foresight, commercial acumen, and customer-centric thinking. She understands how to help SaaS businesses grow sustainably without compromising profitability, culture, or product quality. Think high employee retention. High customer satisfaction. Low churn. Manageable tech debt. A culture of experimentation. Layla brings all of these together naturally.
Wilson Wong
CDO/CTO Executive Advisor
SEEK
She has an uncanny ability to distil complex commercial problems down to their key components and create strategies that deliver measurable outcomes. She is equally effective at building stakeholder alignment around a shared vision and translating strategy into execution.
Gregan McMahon
CEO
Layla demonstrated exceptional capability in fostering collaborative and innovative organisational culture, while also bringing strong strategic focus to product and operational leadership. Her work significantly strengthened cross-functional capability across the business. She is a highly professional executive who seamlessly integrates people strategy with product strategy, making her an impactful leader in any organisation.
Meghan Bach
Group Chief People Officer
Rex Software
Layla was a respected and highly successful leader who brought together designers, developers, and marketers to build and grow a new multi-million dollar business within Envato. She understands how to build both great teams and great products. More importantly, she understands people, and how to help them perform at their best for themselves and for the business.
Adam Noonan
Head of Growth
Envato
The thinking behind the work
These essays aren't background reading. They are the work. Each one names something that organisations feel but struggle to articulate.
The Hidden Work of a Product Operating Model
The operating model is the system underneath strategy. When it's invisible, good work disappears. When it's named, organisations can finally act on what they already know.
What If You Just Stopped Building Features for a While?
Not because you've failed. Because the thing you're building doesn't quite match what you set out to build. Part one of a two-part series on the courage it takes to pause and rebuild well.
View my full CV
Built across SEEK, Go1, Envato, and Smiling Mind: platform transformation, marketplace creation, company turnarounds, and executive leadership.
Start a conversation
If you're working through something (a team that's stuck, a system that isn't behaving the way it should, a strategy that needs to become legible, or a board that needs a sharper technology voice), reach out. No pitch deck required.
I'm based in Australia and work with teams globally.