Built by an Operator.
18+ years leading growth, operations and transformation across founder-led, multi-site and global businesses.
About Behind Brands
Behind Brands was created to support founder-led businesses navigating growth, expansion and operational complexity.
As businesses grow, the challenges change. What once worked can quickly become unsustainable. Founders find themselves managing people, operations, suppliers, launches, customers and growth — often while still carrying the weight of every major decision.
That's where we come in.
Behind Brands provides executive-level support across strategy, operations and leadership, helping businesses build the structure, systems and accountability required for sustainable growth.
Founded by Irene Panebianco, Behind Brands is backed by more than 18 years of executive leadership experience across high-growth, founder-led and multi-site businesses.
Throughout her career, Irene has led national and international growth initiatives, operational transformation programs, governance reform, retail expansion and large-scale teams across the beauty, retail, education and childcare sectors.
Most recently, Irene served as General Manager of BondiBoost, helping transform the business from an Australian direct-to-consumer brand into a global omnichannel business with retail expansion across Sephora, Ulta Beauty, Boots, David Jones, Oz Hair & Beauty, Adore Beauty, Atomica, HairHouse, The ICONIC and leading beauty retailers. She played a key leadership role through the company's successful Private Equity acquisition.
Prior to BondiBoost, Irene held senior leadership positions across YMCA NSW, Bliss Early Learning, Little Learning School, Junior Adventures Group, Big Fat Smile and Camp Australia, overseeing multi-site operations, compliance, growth, governance and organisational transformation across more than 100 services.
Today, Behind Brands works with a select number of founder-led businesses that are ready to scale with stronger leadership, clearer structure and greater operational maturity.
To ensure deep strategic focus and long-term partnership value, we work with one brand per category at any given time.
Our ApproachWe don't operate like an agency.
We embed ourselves as strategic partners, working alongside founders and leadership teams to provide practical guidance, executive oversight and operational support that drives meaningful business outcomes.
Whether it's strengthening leadership capability, improving operational performance, preparing for expansion or helping a founder step out of the day-to-day, our focus is always the same:
Building stronger businesses behind growing brands.
When your business is growing... but everything still depends on you.
That's where we come in.
You’re managing suppliers, launches, operations, staff, marketing and customer growth — all while trying to scale the business.
The brand is growing, but the backend isn’t keeping up.
You know you need senior leadership, stronger systems and commercial direction… but you’re not ready for a full-time executive hire.
That’s where I come in.
I work with founder-led brands to bring structure, strategy and operational leadership that supports sustainable growth.
