What Blackmill does

Blackmill is an Australian private consulting and coaching firm headquartered in Melbourne, founded in 2017 by Elle Meredith and Lachlan Hardy after their return from New York. The firm serves technology organizations and engineering leaders — including CTOs, VP Engineering, Engineering Managers and team leads — through three interlocking revenue streams: bespoke consulting engagements (backfilling technical leadership roles, executive counsel, leadership offsites, custom consulting projects), structured workshops sold cohort-by-cohort via the ti.to ticketing platform (the flagship 'Leading Engineering Teams' four-session program, plus 'Building Inclusive Teams' and 'Building Empathy in Remote Teams'), and individual or group leadership coaching delivered by named practitioners such as Nicola Nye. There is no proprietary software platform; the firm's underlying technology consists of consulting methodologies, training curricula and leadership frameworks that are packaged and reused across engagements. Documented customers span enterprise and mid-market technology firms across aviation/hospitality (Qantas Hotels), EdTech (Forage), HR tech (Culture Amp), software consulting (Alembic) and telecommunications (Biarri Networks). Go-to-market is hybrid: direct, relationship-led sales initiated through a booking call (meet.blackmill.co) for bespoke work, complemented by a content-led top-of-funnel built on an extensive resource library, a monthly newsletter, and active community involvement in CTO School Australia, Tech Leading Ladies and Ruby Australia. Quantified client outcomes cited include a 20% reduction in time-to-first-response at Biarri Networks, and 4.5/5 training usefulness ratings at Culture Amp.

Name

Blackmill

Legal name

Blackmill Consulting

Website

https://blackmill.co

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Blackmill is a Melbourne-based engineering leadership consulting firm founded in 2017 that delivers bespoke consulting, coaching and cohort workshops to technology organizations and engineering leaders across Australia.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Management Consulting

NAICS

Human Resources Consulting Services (541612), Other Management Consulting Services (541618), Professional and Management Development Training (61143), Management Consulting Services (54161)

SIC

Services-Management Consulting Services (8742), Services-Engineering, Accounting, Research, Management (8700)

akta.pro primary industry

Team Leadership & High-Performance Teams (EDABAAAH)

akta.pro secondary industries

Coaching, Feedback & Mentoring Skills (EDABAMAM), Leadership Development & Executive Coaching (BPAHAGAD), Corporate & Leadership Development (BPACANAA)

Keywords

• Engineering leadership consulting
• Executive coaching services
• Team development workshops
• Technical leadership training
• Organizational development consulting

Headquarters

HQ city

Melbourne

HQ country

Australia

HQ region

Oceania

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations, Others

Revenue model

1. Consulting Services: Bespoke consulting engagements including backfilling technical leadership roles, executive counsel, and custom consulting projects. Delivered by experienced engineering leaders who have worked at companies including thoughtbot, Atlassian, Microsoft, GitHub, and others. Engagements are tailored to client needs with typical durations ranging from months to ongoing relationships.
2. Workshops & Training Programs: Structured workshop offerings including 'Leading Engineering Teams' (4-day cohort-based program), bespoke workshops, and leadership offsites. Programs are sold via ticketing platform with per-attendee pricing. Additional formats include group coaching (8 sessions).
3. Coaching: One-on-one leadership coaching and group coaching sessions. Nicola Nye offers coaching sessions (25, 55, and 60 minutes) via video call. Leadership coaching services provided to individual leaders and teams.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Blackmill delivers bespoke consulting, executive counsel, leadership offsites, and structured coaching and workshop programs for technology leaders and engineering teams. Offerings include backfilling technical leadership roles, group coaching, developer onboarding, and cohort-based workshops such as 'Leading Engineering Teams,' 'Building Inclusive Teams,' and 'Building Empathy in Remote Teams.' The firm focuses on building internal leadership capability rather than creating consultant dependency.

Product overview

Blackmill is a consulting company offering a portfolio of professional services centered on leadership development and engineering team effectiveness. The core offerings include bespoke consulting services (backfilling technical leadership roles, executive counsel, leadership offsites), coaching and training programs (leadership coaching, developer onboarding, group coaching), and structured workshops (Leading Engineering Teams, Building Inclusive Teams, Building Empathy in Remote Teams). These services are delivered through individual engagements, group programs, and public workshop offerings, with a focus on building internal organizational capabilities rather than providing software products.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Consulting Services Bespoke consulting services including backfilling technical leadership roles, bespoke consulting projects, executive counsel, leadership offsites, and bespoke workshop development for technology organizations and engineering teams.
• Coaching and Training Leadership coaching, group coaching, developer onboarding, and community of practice programs designed to build internal leadership capabilities for technology leaders and their teams.
• Leading Engineering Teams Workshop Interactive workshop for engineering managers and team leaders covering core technical leadership skills that can be applied immediately. Includes a 30-minute individual intake chat, pre-recorded learning materials, and four live sessions of 2.5 hours each.
• Building Inclusive Teams Workshop Workshop designed to help organisations promote personal development, inclusion, and emotional intelligence within remote and distributed work contexts.
• Building Empathy in Remote Teams Workshop Workshop teaching strategies to address issues that prohibit team productivity and enable fostering of diverse and inclusive company culture in remote settings.

Quantifiable outcome

• 20% decrease in average time to first response for Biarri Networks support team
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers5 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Scale indicators2 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• thoughtbot: thoughtbot is a design and development consultancy with deep Ruby on Rails and engineering culture expertise and an explicit focus on mentoring teams from the inside—a near-twin to Blackmill's positioning. Elle Meredith and Lachlan Hardy both worked at thoughtbot, and Blackmill's anti-dependency coaching methodology mirrors thoughtbot's product/project mentorship model.
• Atomic Object: Atomic Object is a US-based custom software consultancy that, like Blackmill, embeds senior engineers alongside client teams and emphasizes developer culture and capability building. It represents a scaled-up version of Blackmill's bespoke consulting model with engineering culture as a core differentiator.
• CTO Craft: CTO Craft is a global community and content brand dedicated to engineering leadership, with a focus on CTOs, VPs, and engineering directors. It mirrors Blackmill's CTO School Australia community program and produces educational content on engineering leadership—overlapping tightly on target persona and thought leadership approach.
• Pluralith: Pluralith (formerly Plato) is a structured engineering management coaching and training marketplace that pairs engineering leaders with vetted coaches. Like Blackmill, it targets the engineering manager persona but operates at greater scale and via a tech-enabled platform rather than founder-led delivery, making it a directly comparable, slightly more productized competitor.

Broad incumbents

• IDEO: IDEO is a design and innovation consultancy that helps organizations build internal capabilities for change—a structurally similar operating model to Blackmill's consulting + training combination. It serves a broader design and innovation scope but competes for similar 'build internal capacity' budgets from the same kind of innovation-conscious buyers.
• Center for Creative Leadership: CCL is a globally established leadership development institution offering executive education, coaching, and assessment programs to corporate clients. It is the archetypal broad incumbent in leadership development—overlapping on coaching/training content but at much larger scale and across all industries, not engineering-specific.
• Bain & Company: Bain is a top-tier management consulting firm whose organizational and leadership practice competes for the same enterprise buyers that Blackmill targets. Bain operates at vastly greater scale, but Blackmill's positioning as an anti-dependency, engineering-specialist alternative is explicitly aimed at displacing engagements of this kind.
• McKinsey & Company (People & Organizational Performance Practice): McKinsey's People & Organizational Performance practice addresses leadership capability building for large enterprises and overlaps with Blackmill's value proposition at the high end. It is a major broad incumbent whose retainer-based model Blackmill's anti-dependency pitch explicitly contrasts against.
• BetterUp: BetterUp is a tech-enabled leadership coaching platform serving enterprise buyers across all functions, including engineering leaders. It is a much broader incumbent that competes for the same leadership coaching wallet as Blackmill but at scale via an app-based delivery model rather than boutique in-person engagements.

Regional players

• Honeycomb Consulting: Honeycomb Consulting is a UK/EMEA-focused technology and engineering leadership consultancy providing interim CTO and engineering management advisory—comparable to Blackmill's executive counsel and backfilling services. It is a regional peer with similar technical leadership focus but a different geographic footprint.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/blackmill-consulting
• Xx.com/blackmillco

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Blackmill