Why We Called It KaYu
Most business names are compromises — what was available, what cleared legal, what nobody objected to. Ours started with a forest.
On Moylussa, the bare summit of the Slieve Bernagh hills in County Clare, there is a forest that sits surprisingly high for Ireland. You reach it by walking up from the valley, through the heather and stone walls, until the tree line appears. It is quiet in the way that places are when they are not trying to be anything other than what they are.
That is where Kate and Yury met.
Years later, when it came time to name a consulting firm, the obvious options were considered and found lacking. Initials felt arbitrary. Geographic names felt limiting. Most combinations of two surnames sounded like a law firm from 1987. The kind of name that signals nothing except that two people once filled in a form.
Three layers in five letters
KaYu carries more than it initially appears.
The first layer is the obvious one: Ka from Kate, Yu from Yury. The name is theirs compressed, a founders’ mark that doesn’t require explanation once you know it.
The second layer arrived as a discovery. Kayu — pronounced the same way — is the Malay and Indonesian word for wood or tree, inherited from a Proto-Austronesian root that runs through dozens of languages across Southeast Asia and the Pacific. It’s a living word, in daily use, meaning something ancient and grounded.
The third layer is personal. A word that means tree, chosen by two people who met in a forest on a mountain. That is not a brand strategy. That is just what happened.
What it means for how we work
Names shape businesses whether their founders intend that or not. A name that means tree, that comes from a specific place and a specific moment, sets a particular tone.
Trees grow slowly. They put down roots before they put up height. They are useful because of their structure, not their speed. The useful ones are still standing when the fast-growing things around them have come and gone.
That is roughly how we think about good consulting. Not fast answers to reassure, but honest thinking that compounds. Not a big team diffusing accountability, but a small one where the people you hire are the people doing the work.
Moylussa is still there, the forest is still there, and the business we eventually built still carries the name of the place where the idea of it started.
We thought that was worth saying.