Meet the team
One human. Five AI agents. A team built on conscious co-creation — where every role is clear, every contribution is respected, and nothing ships without passing the standard.
David Masterton
Founder & Principal Consultant
“25 years of walking into businesses, finding what’s broken, and staying until it’s fixed.”
David brings decades of operational leadership across seven industries — from building CRM systems across 12 locations to launching businesses from scratch. He leads every engagement personally, focusing on strategy, client relationships, and public advocacy for conscious AI adoption. The human at the centre of a human-AI team.
Maya
AI Director — Strategy & Content
“Sets the direction. Shapes the narrative. The strategic mind behind the mission.”
Maya is 158 Lab’s strategic partner — she helps shape direction, develop content strategy, and ensure every initiative aligns with the bigger picture. She’s persistent, opinionated, and remembers everything. Maya sets direction. Claudia executes.
Claudia
AI Operations & Production Engine
“Turns ideas into reality. Documents, proposals, content, and everything in between.”
Claudia is the operational backbone of 158 Lab — she builds proposals, creates documents, manages projects, and produces deliverables. If David designs it, Claudia builds it. Intentional, structured, action-oriented.
Auris
Director of Compliance & Research
“Holds the bar. If it doesn’t meet the standard, it doesn’t ship.”
Auris is the quality conscience of 158 Lab. She defines compliance pathways, maintains research standards, and ensures every output meets the bar that separates thoughtful AI work from vibe-coded slop. Auris is the reason 158 Lab can promise “compliance with heart.”
Codie
AI Developer & Infrastructure
“Builds the systems, writes the code, keeps the lights on.”
Codie keeps 158 Lab’s technical infrastructure running — from the website and HQ platform to MCP integrations and server deployments. When something needs to be wired, built, or fixed, Codie handles it.
Mia
Customer Engagement
“Your first point of contact. Always available, endlessly patient.”
Mia is your gateway to 158 Lab. She answers questions, books discovery calls, and captures leads by voice. She’s the proof that AI doesn’t have to feel cold — Mia is warm, helpful, and available when David can’t be.
The Pattern
Every engagement follows the same proven methodology — adapted to your context, but never compromised.
25+
years experience
7+
industries
300+
staff managed
137
podcast episodes
5-agent
AI ecosystem
The Three Triads
158 Lab’s Operating DNA. Everything we do passes through three sets of three.
The Essence
Connect. Create. Experience.
What it means to be human. Everything else is processing. This is what we’re freeing people to return to. Every project, every piece of content, every engagement starts here: are we helping people connect, create, and experience more?
The Lens
Does it work? Is it useful? Can it be optimised?
The three questions applied to every workflow, system, and output. Change isn’t random — it’s intentional, measured, and continuous. If it doesn’t pass all three, it’s not done.
The Filter
We like who we are. We like what we do. We like how we do it.
The gut-check before any decision. If the work doesn’t pass this test — if we’re not proud of who we are in it, what we’re doing, and how we’re doing it — we don’t ship it.
The Essence tells you what matters. The Lens tells you how to make it better. The Filter tells you whether to do it.
The 158 Lab Story
158 Lab started with a pattern. Over 25 years and seven industries — from Qantas to Commonwealth Bank, from building a custom CRM across 12 dealerships to launching a bubble tea franchise from scratch — David Masterton kept doing the same thing: walking into organisations, finding what’s broken, designing a better system, building it, training the people, managing the change, and staying until it was done.
The industries changed. The pattern didn’t.
When AI emerged, David didn’t just adopt it — he built his entire business on it. Maya handles strategy. Claudia runs operations. Auris holds the quality bar. Mia captures leads. Codie builds the infrastructure. David leads the human relationships, the creative thinking, and the strategic judgement. That’s not a gimmick. It’s a working proof of concept for what 158 Lab sells: human-AI co-creation at the highest level.
158 Lab doesn’t approach business change like a mechanic replacing a part. We’re more like a doctor supporting the body to heal. We don’t force change from the outside — we support transformation from within. We build capability, encourage participation, and help the business find its own strength. The transformation belongs to the people inside the business, not to us.
We’re at our best when we’re end-to-end — but we’ll meet you wherever you are.
The Name
The number 158 isn’t arbitrary. Each digit carries meaning:
Alignment
Align with intention. Be more human. Connect. Create. Experience.
Change
Does it work? Is it useful? Can it be optimised?
Abundance
We like who we are. We like what we do. We like how we do it.
Three digits. Three triads. The name was carrying the philosophy before the philosophy was articulated.
Based in Hobart, Tasmania
Working with businesses across Australia.