01
Operators first, founders second
Every pod is led by someone who has done the work in an Australian business, finance close, weekly roster, customer queue, board pack. We don't hand the work to managers who learned it from a deck.
About LIBA
Operators first.
Founders second.
LIBA is built and led by people who have done the work, finance close, weekly roster, customer queue, board pack, in Australian businesses. We're based in Bali because the people we want to hire are already here, and they're not leaving.
Our story
Built backwards from the work.
We started LIBA after watching too many Australian operators hand operational work to an offshore vendor and quietly hate the result. The work came back broken, the team lead changed every quarter, the savings evaporated into rework, and the in-house team ended up doing the job twice.
We thought the model was wrong. Not the geography, the model. Selling seats by the hour, treating people as fungible, hiding accountability behind a "delivery manager", optimising for margin instead of outcome.
LIBA is the version we wanted to exist. Small, named pods. One team lead per engagement. Slow hiring. Long tenure. A studio we run, not a labour pool we tap into. Built in Bali because it's where the operators are, and built for AU because that's where we worked before.
What we hold ourselves to
Five principles. Non-negotiable.
02
Pods, not seats
We don't sell hours, FTEs or headcount. We sell a small, named team that owns a defined outcome, with a team lead who is accountable when something goes wrong.
03
Slow hiring is the moat
We hire one operator at a time, against a written brief, with a working trial. Most candidates we meet do not make it through. The people who do, stay for years.
04
Compliance is a hard constraint
Modern Awards, EBAs, payroll tax, BAS, super, privacy, these are not optional and not negotiable. Every pod is trained on the relevant instruments before go-live.
05
Australian hours, Australian calendar
AEST coverage 06:00-19:00, Australian public holidays, EOFY-aware. Bali sits at GMT+8 (two hours behind Sydney; three during daylight saving), pods start early so you get the full Australian working day, with no overnight handover.
Founders
Three operators. One studio.
Chris Robbin
Co-founder · Sydney
Years of operating experience across Australian hospitality, retail and services. Runs the Sydney scoping office, the first call clients have with LIBA, and the standard every pod is held to.
Ayu Kusuma
Co-founder · Bali
Built and led operational teams across Bali for over a decade before LIBA. Leads pod design, team-lead development and the quality bar that every engagement is measured against.
Wayan Surya
Head of Studio · Bali
Runs the Bali studio day-to-day, hiring, onboarding, training and culture. Holds the line on slow, deliberate hiring, even when clients want pods stood up tomorrow.
How we got here
A short timeline.
- 2019Two of three founders relocate to Bali. The pattern becomes obvious, global operators are choosing Bali and staying.
- 2022First quiet engagement, a Sydney hospitality group's rostering function moved to a four-person Bali pod. Still a client.
- 2024LIBA incorporates. Studio opens in Bali. Finance and customer ops practices added alongside rostering.
- 2026Three practices live, twenty-plus pods running, one studio in Bali, a Sydney scoping office. Onward.
Want to work with us, or for us?
Clients start with a 30-minute scoping call. Operators start with an open application, we read every note.