Business advisor for successful female founders, CEOs & entrepreneurs ready simplify the complex, grow for the long term and achieve what they once didn’t think was possible.
Meet Kayla
I help ambitious women build businesses that grow because of them, not through them, and feels as good behind the scenes as it looks from the outside.
I’m Kayla Ellsworth — a growth expert turned Business Advisor and Strategist for women whose business growth looks extraordinary on the outside but can feel unsustainable behind the scenes.
For more 17 years, I worked in high-pressure strategic roles advising founders, executives, and personal brands on how to grow, scale, and show up publicly. That experience gave me a deep understanding of what growth and visibility really demands — the emotional load, the creative expectations, the constant need to “be on,” and the reality of being the face of your work.
I don’t just understand your external world — I understand the internal cost of sustaining it.
I work privately with high-achieving women who are stretched thin by constant demands of running a growing business. My work blends my background in brand, business growth, and visibility strategy with a structural approach to business and life design shaped by lived experience and years consulting successful brand leaders.
I help incredibly successful and visible women take their business (and life) to the next level by looking at it inside out: the systems, rhythms, and structures that shape how you operate… your business, revenue, goals, pace, energy, decisions, priorities and sense of self.
There’s nothing theoretical about it — it’s practical, strategic, grounded, and designed to be sustainable.
I've worked with founders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, creators and creatives carving out their stake in their industries.
I've shaped strategy for Fortune 500 C-suites, advised executives on building visibility, helped take brands from unknown to known, built and led teams that moved real revenue, grew reach in a major way and established real category authority.
How I got here
Everything I bring to the women I work with, the strategy, the audacity, the refusal to settle, started long before I had a single client. It started here.
I grew up in a small town, you know, “dreaming of being a businesswoman in a big city.”
I wanted to set records and be know and do what I saw women do in Devil Wears Prada, Legally Blonde, Will & Grace and You've Got Mail. People thought I was crazy. I moved to Chicago at 18 anyway.
That dream, and helping more women do the same, has driven me ever since.
I started as a PR intern in college. Going to the John Hancock building for work felt like I had made it. (It's giving movies, ya know?) Then a marketing internship in the meatpacking district turned into a full-time job that changed everything.
Over the years I've held many roles, full-time and freelance. I've worked with founders, ex-Fortune 100 executives, creators, doctors and hospitality brands. People in wildly different industries, each with their own goals and the same tireless drive to be the best in their fields and grow. The variety is what taught me what's universal in business growth and what's specific to the person leading it.
That intern is now a senior brand growth executive and an advisor to founders who want the same outcomes.
What I Learned Over Time
My work is rooted in lived experience, not theory.
After years of trying to grow through non-stop hustle, I burned out and realized working your ass off isn't enough.
You need the right strategy, structure and people in your corner to make the big dreams possible. The answer isn't more effort. It's better planning, systems, strategy, counsel and support.
That realization is the basis of everything I do now.
I don't believe in shrinking the dream. I believe in building the structure that holds it.
Now, I provide the support I wish I had years ago: someone who can see what you can’t when you’re too tired, too busy, or too deep inside your own business and life to recognize what needs to change — and someone who can help you make it happen.
How I Support My Clients
Today I do what I love by day and my second calling by evening and weekends, helping ambitious women grow businesses because of how they build and lead, not through personal output.
More than anything, I love being their right hand, in it side by side, strategizing, building and working through the big calls together.
I also see the women I work with where they actually are. There are bills and people to pay, people who depend on the business, business goals and revenue targets to hit, clients and customers that rely on them, and a whole life built on top of it. I never forget that what we decide together has real impact and it's part of why I take it as seriously as they do.
I take a small number of private clients at a time, by application.
My advisory is not coaching, productivity, or optimization.
It is a deeply personal, tailored, strategic partnership where your business, life, priorities, energy, and identity are treated as one unified system and built with intention. Nothing is templated, rushed or surface level.
It’s the kind of support high-achieving women wish existed sooner: someone who understands the demands of growth, visibility and success — and helps you build and execute the plan to support it.
My method (without the madness)
The Vision Behind My Work
My long-term vision is simple: to reshape the standard for how successful women build, work and live — so their business and life fuels them, not drains them.
What life looks like on the other side of my laptop
When I’m not working, you’ll find me hanging out with my husband and our min pin, Percy, manifesting through manicures, planning weekend getaways, or hunting down the best local shops. I love a good antique, great coffee, and finding humor in everyday life.
Like everyone, I have my obsessions — mine happen to include my dog (who has his own psychic), listening to Lady Gaga, Harry Styles and classical piano, watching Seinfeld, and building my dreams with the help of my psychic, guides and mentors.
When I’m not doing that, I’m probably on my personal Instagram lamenting about my favorite things.
Beyond the Bio
I’m a recovering perfectionist and work on being more flexible every day. That said, there are three things I don’t budge on:
If I order champagne and a restaurant only has prosecco, I’ll get a club soda.
I exclusively* get my candles, hand wash + diffusers from Hotel Lobby Candle (I’ve placed 45+ orders).
Caviar is my favorite snack. No special occasion needed. My go-to is Petrossian.