Meet the Founders
Rishum Butt
CO-FOUNDER
Rishum is a seasoned strategist and brand operator, with 14 years’ experience in helping brands scale, evolve, and outperform. Having worked at Estée Lauder Companies, Jo Malone London, and Amazon and as an independent strategy advisor, she developed domain deep sectoral expertise and connections across Beauty, Apparel, and Luxury.
Before co-founding Lyra Strategy, she held senior Strategy & Project Delivery roles at Estée Lauder Companies and Jo Malone London where she led the development of brand, innovation & corporate strategies, crafted operational budgets and plans, and drove implementation of multi-million dollar growth & profitability initiatives. With a “hands-on” approach, she has a proven record of delivering growth and transformational impact with businesses of all sizes, including: expanding brands into new markets and retailers, launching new product categories, optimising pricing and assortment architectures, and preparing brands for investment rounds.
Known for combining analytical rigour, creative flair, and pragmatism, Rishum has established herself as a trusted advisor to CEOs and business leaders.
As the world and consumer needs continue to evolve, Rishum is excited to support the next generation of consumer brands in remaining agile and one step ahead. She is particularly passionate about partnering with female and minority-owned businesses to break barriers and scale with confidence.
Lise Backman
CO-FOUNDER
Lise is a seasoned strategist and operator with deep expertise in brand building, channel development, customer experience, and digital innovation. Lise specialises in aligning strategic business goals with fresh, forward-thinking ideas - grounded in pragmatic, results-driven implementation.
Her experience spans private equity investors, SMEs, and within complex corporate environments. She has partnered with numerous mid-market private equity firms and led commercial due diligence teams across dozens of investments, including the acquisition of Fever Tree and Farrow & Ball.
At Jo Malone London, Lise shaped the brand’s three-year strategic plan and went on to lead several core functions: Retail Experience, Omnichannel, CRM, and Digital Innovation. Her work included overseeing a major store redesign, developing new sales and communication channels, and driving personalisation of digital experiences at scale. Lise developed Jo Malone London’s Digital Innovation function, pushing the brand to the forefront of emerging technologies to drive and deepen consumer engagement in new and meaningful ways.
As AI reshapes business operations and consumer expectations, Lise is passionate about helping companies manage these complexities - ensuring strategic goals are met while culture and purpose remain firmly at the centre.
Our Advisors
We collaborate with a trusted network of expert advisors and agencies, ensuring you have have access to the specialist domain knowledge and capabilities needed to achieve your goals.
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Elena Shalito
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT & MARKETING
With experience at L'Oreal, LVMH, and Jo Malone London, Elena brings extensive expertise in product development and marketing strategy. Over her 15+ years in the fragrance and luxury space, she has held pivotal positions that shaped market success. As the Global Marketing & Lifestyle Executive Director at Jo Malone London, Elena drove new product development and marketing programmes from conception to launch, while establishing a comprehensive 5-year innovation pipeline. Previously, at LVMH, she crafted global marketing strategies for fragrance brands, focusing on 360° marketing and launch execution. More recently, Elena has served as an advisor to start-ups, recognised as a trusted C-Suite partner. Elena is a candid communicator, and a perfect blend of sharp intuition and deep industry expertise.
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James Molloy
FUNDRAISING & INTERNATIONAL EXPANSION
A former CFO and COO, ex Uber, Bird, and KPMG, James has over 20 years’ experience in finance and operations. After starting his career in finance, James led key operational expansion initiatives at Uber and Bird, building teams, developing growth plans, overseeing, monitoring, and optimising expansion and launch initiatives. James is heavily involved in the start-up space, having worked as CFO and COO of Shackle, co-leading efforts to raise seed and Series A rounds totalling $20 million USD. Alongside his fundraising, financial structuring and international expansion know-how, James helps founders and CEOs demystify the complexity of the investment landscape with ease and charm.
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Michelle Moloney
DIGITAL & ECOMMERCE
Ex PANGAIA, Jo Malone London, and Anya Hindmarch, Michelle has over 15 years’ experience leading digital strategy within beauty, fragrance, and luxury fashion & apparel. Michelle has overseen e-Commerce P&L, EBITDA and channel strategy planning across D2C, Retailer.com, Social platforms, and has overseen roll-out onto Tmall, Douyin, We Chat, Kakao, amongst other platforms. Michelle has extensive hands-on experience in performance and full funnel marketing, digital content creation, and GTM planning and execution. On top this extensive digital experience, Michelle is a talented stylist and art director and has recently founded her own kids’ creative and styling business. An honest and open communicator and collaborator, Michelle brings warmth, positivity, and flair to every project.
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Brendan Teer
RETAIL DESIGN & VISUAL MERCHANDISING
Ex Jo Malone London and Charlotte Tilbury, Brendan is a seasoned Retail Design, Spatial Planning and Visual Merchandising director. At Charlotte Tilbury, Brendan led the execution of a market-leading store design strategy across the UK, North America, and EMEA, supporting the brand during a pivotal growth phase. During his time at Jo Malone London, Brendan led the store design team, delivering hyper-localised, bespoke concepts that supported significant international door expansion. Currently, Brendan’s skills are being applied at Dr. Barbara Sturm, where he oversees global retail design and visual merchandising. A rare blend of creative talent and commercial acumen, Brendan is a thoughtful, decisive, and collaborative partner for any business.
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Hayley Hand
EXECUTIVE COACH
An ex EY-Parthenon management consultant and currently an Impact & Investment Director, Hayley has over 15 years’ strategic advisory and investment experience across a range of sectors. Hayley has led teams on complex commercial and vendor due diligence projects, working closely with the private equity community. Through her roles as Impact Director and an Executive Coach, Hayley is also a trusted sounding board and thought partner to founders and business leaders. Sharp as a tack, friendly, inquisitive, and with a second-to-none ability to listen and problem solve, Hayley is a relied upon confidant to colleagues, CEOs, and founders across the start-up and investor ecosystem.
