Inner Fitness with Laila Tarraf

Week of February 6, 2027

Laila Tarraf is a leadership coach and human capital advisor with over 25 years of experience working with founders, owners, and leadership teams at critical moments of transition, growth, and complexity. She has held three Chief People Officer roles, first as a founding member of Walmart.com during the height of the first internet bubble, then at Peet’s Coffee & Tea as it evolved from a regional retail company into a national, multi-channel brand. Most recently, she served as Chief People Officer at Allbirds, where she built the leadership and people infrastructure required to navigate a global pandemic, significant social unrest, and the company’s successful path to becoming a public company.

Ms. Tarraf also spent seven years in private equity, serving as Director of Human Capital at GI Partners and later as a Human Capital Advisor with Altamont Capital. In these roles, she partnered closely with founders, CEOs, and leadership teams across the investment lifecycle, supporting CEO transitions, leadership team alignment, succession planning, and high-stakes conversations where economics, power, and trust intersect.

Today, Ms. Tarraf advises founders, family owners, private-equity-backed CEOs, and management teams navigating inflection points such as founder transitions, ownership and partnership dynamics, and leadership succession. Her work focuses on helping leaders move through complexity by surfacing unspoken dynamics, strengthening decision-making and accountability, and enabling leadership teams to operate with greater cohesion and effectiveness.

Known for her ability to integrate human dynamics, organizational design, and business strategy, Ms. Tarraf helps leaders develop deeper awareness of their motivations and patterns, strengthen their capacity for direct and constructive dialogue, and build leadership teams capable of sustaining both performance and relationship over time.

Ms. Tarraf is a graduate of the Berkeley Haas School of Business and the author of Strong Like Water. She is a sought-after advisor, coach, and speaker.

You can learn more about her at lailatarraf.com and linkedin.com/in/lailatarraf.