MEET LELLIOTT

I've been the strategist, the creative director, and sometimes the co-founder. The work has taught me that great brands aren't decorated—they're composed. Clarity, contrast, restraint, tension—those same instincts drive both my art and the systems I build.

I'm Daylesford-based, craft-obsessed, and founder-friendly, happiest in the room with founders and senior teams, creating work that turns a messy whiteboard into breakthrough you can defend.

30 years building brands people care about deeply: SAINT (co-founded, $0→$5M), Knog (CMO, $200K→$10M in 2 years), Crumpler (€19M, 25 EU stores), SKINS (5 regions), Bellroy (brand foundations).

The pattern: Your business model matters more than your brand. Brand can't fix broken business models—but show me a sound business model in nearly any category, and brand becomes the multiplier.

I structure the business first (pricing, margins, channels, target buyer). Then activate through brand that resonates—the difference between "this will do" and "I must have."

Not prettier decks. Commercial outcomes.

Contemporary works exploring resilience, disruption, and the Australian landscape. Large-scale paintings, installations, and IP-driven projects that bridge art, storytelling, and brand.

Recent exhibitions: Wide Open Road (2024, 2025), Pro Hart Outback Art Prize, Camberwell Art Show (Best Watercolour), Melbourne Savage Club (Best Watercolour).

The painting practice sharpens pattern recognition, maintains creative discipline, and keeps instincts alive.

Gallery

I embed with founders and senior teams for strategic projects—2-4 weeks of intensive work that combines commercial strategy and brand activation.

What that looks like:

• Week 1-2: Commercial strategy (business model, pricing, channels, competitive position)

• Week 2-4: Brand activation (positioning, messaging, story, execution framework)

• Outcome: Integrated playbook teams can execute for revenue growth

I use human creativity with AI for amplification—not as replacement, but as accelerator for speed and scaling.

CMO Roles – Founder-led brands, growth stage, comfortable with remote/flying

Fractional CMO – 2-3 brands simultaneously, strategic + hands-on

Strategic Projects – Business structure + brand activation, 2-4 weeks

"Lelliott is a strong entrepreneur and remarkable creative, who has a rare ability to find sparks forging new brands and products that resonate."

— Andy Fallshaw, Co-Founder Bellroy

"Lelliott has always had an artist's eye for brand, but his commercial strategy changes the game. He doesn't just make brands look good—he structures business and activates brand in ways that drive revenue. It's the kind of thinking I wish I'd had on the table earlier."

— Seth Watts, Co-Founder CampaignAgent

"Lelliott turned founder vision into market-ready breakthrough: comfortable, all-day, single-layer Dyneema® protective denim. His clarity, passion, and open communication made collaboration easy and helped SAINT achieve outsized traction quickly."

— Giovanni Henssen, DSM Dyneema

Classically trained at University of Melbourne (Victorian College of the Arts). Three decades bridging fine art and commercial innovation—desert immersions, subcultures across continents, global brand-building.

The breadth: from photographing music culture in West Hollywood to documenting Tokyo underground, from riding motorcycles across desert landscapes to quiet days on my farm in Daylesford.

This lived experience brings perspective and emotional depth to commercial work. Pattern recognition across cultures, instinct for what resonates, understanding of how ideas travel.