Marla Ubhi
​CEO - Chief People Whisperer
Marla Ubhi has spent over three decades building, scaling, fixing, and exiting businesses — often stepping in when growth has stalled, accountability has blurred, or decisions carry material financial and reputational consequence.
Her background spans founder-led startups, investor-backed growth businesses, and complex operational environments. She has held direct responsibility for commercial performance, governance, leadership teams, and delivery under scrutiny, including periods of restructuring, turnaround, and sustained growth.
As Managing Director of KSC Worldwide, Marla led the transformation of operational performance across a multi-site business. This included restructuring senior and site-level accountability, building a capable operational leadership team, and embedding disciplined performance management. During this period, the business delivered consistent year-on-year growth, improved margins, and stronger cash flow, alongside the successful negotiation of a long-term £120m fuel supply agreement.
Alongside executive leadership roles, Marla has founded, built, and exited multiple businesses across retail, services, and investment. Her work has included acquiring and restructuring underperforming businesses, scaling premium service-led brands, and supporting founders through succession planning and exits. A recurring focus has been identifying where value is leaking — culturally, operationally, or structurally — and addressing those issues before they become irreversible.
More recently, through Marla Investments and NakedAI, her work has centred on supporting founders, CEOs, boards, and investors at moments of uncertainty: when new capabilities are entering the organisation, when technology alters the shape of decision-making, or when pressure to move quickly conflicts with the need for sound judgement. Her role is to clarify what decisions are actually being made, where responsibility sits, and what must be true before moving forward.
Across all of this work, the constant has been judgement — helping leaders make decisions they can stand behind commercially, ethically, and in hindsight.
Much of Marla’s work involves stepping into situations where something is already in motion, but the organisation is not yet clear on what it is actually deciding. These are moments where pressure exists, options are narrowing, and choices made too early — or without shared understanding — become difficult to reverse.
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She is typically involved when clarity matters: where responsibility is blurred, risks are implicit rather than explicit, and leaders need confidence about what should come first, what should wait, and what should not proceed at all.
What leaders rely on her for
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Making sense of complexity without oversimplifying
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Surfacing hidden assumptions and trade-offs
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Clarifying accountability and decision ownership
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Helping teams move forward — or pause — with confidence
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Where this matters most​
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High-stakes or irreversible decisions
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Periods of change or transition
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Situations under board or external scrutiny
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When governance has not yet caught up