The decisions that keep coming back
Repeatedly discussed, never resolved. Everyone understands the problem. Yet the decision keeps getting postponed, diluted or reversed. By now the useful question is why the organisation cannot resolve it.
Executive advisory · Founders and CEOs
A thinking partner for the decisions you cannot delegate.
I work with founders and CEOs when decisions get harder, leadership dynamics become more complicated or the business demands a different kind of leadership.
Discuss a leadership challenge Confidential. Direct. No obligation to continue.
Where the work starts
The problems that bring CEOs to the table.
When the leadership team becomes the bottleneck
Capable people, structural gridlock. Responsibilities overlap, disagreements stay unresolved and too many decisions still return to the CEO. The work is to understand what is happening between the people as well as within them.
When the business outgrows the founder
The company scaled; leadership did not. How decisions are made and responsibilities are shared has not changed with it. The founder has to work out what to keep, what to let go of and what the next version of their role must look like.
Background
I have sat on both sides of the table.
I trained in molecular genetics and chemical engineering and hold a doctorate. I have founded and built companies and carried the decisions that come with them. That is the experience I bring when a founder or CEO has a hard call to make.
Entrepreneurial experience
Firsthand responsibility for founding and building companies: four years on MaterFly, the venture in women's mental health that became Dana, then founding Kuma Partners. I know what it is to carry the whole company, including the parts that never reach the pitch deck.
Executive and international practice
Over 100 founders, managing directors and C-suite leaders guided across confidential 1:1 advisory, executive peer councils and board-level interventions throughout Europe, in English, Spanish, German and French. I grew up between languages and institutions in Brussels, which still shapes how I read a leadership team.
Research and governance
Research collaboration with IESE Business School since a 2015 case study with Prof. Iñigo Gallo, and with IE Business School. With Prof. Thomas Kluetter and Prof. Nicolas Deuschel I study how founders with non-linear minds lead and govern.
The work
What happens when we work together.
- 01
Bring the real issue
We start with the decision, conflict or transition that is actually occupying your attention.
- 02
Understand what is underneath
We examine the assumptions, power dynamics, incentives and structural friction shaping the situation.
- 03
Challenge your thinking
We test uncomfortable options, pressure-test blind spots and name what is being avoided.
- 04
Decide what happens next
You leave with clarity of judgement and a concrete action to take forward.
Field reflections · Judgement in practice
How this looks in the room.
Confidentiality prevents publishing names. It does not prevent showing how real executive dilemmas get resolved.
The founder bottleneck
Scale-up CEO · Series B
- The dilemma
- Strategic execution was stalling. Every decision bounced back to the founder's desk, creating operational gridlock and executive burnout.
- What lay beneath
- The founder was delegating tasks while keeping unspoken veto rights on product nuance. The team protected itself by escalating decisions rather than owning the risk.
- Resolution
- We codified explicit boundary conditions for autonomous team decisions and rebuilt the executive meeting cadence. The founder reclaimed 15 hours a week and execution pace doubled.
Artificial alignment
Industrial B2B · €80M ARR
- The dilemma
- The executive team agreed unanimously in Monday meetings, yet commercial and operations were executing conflicting priorities by Thursday.
- What lay beneath
- Commercial incentives directly contradicted production capacity. The conflict was structural, while the team kept treating it as a clash of personalities.
- Resolution
- We surfaced the unaddressed economic trade-offs in a facilitated session and replaced cosmetic harmony with an explicit operating agreement on margin versus volume.
The lonely decision
Founder and chairman · International
- The dilemma
- Facing a complex multi-market transition, the founder had nobody inside the organisation who could challenge their logic without an agenda of their own.
- What lay beneath
- The leadership team was managing the founder's temperament instead of stress-testing the valuation models and governance trade-offs.
- Resolution
- I acted as an independent, unvarnished sparring partner for six months, pressure-testing blind spots and structuring a transition that protected the company culture and shareholder value.
Ways to work together
Three paths, one starting point.
Primary · Individual
1:1 Executive Advisory
Confidential strategic counsel for individual founders and CEOs. Two sessions a month for 6 or 12 months, in Barcelona, Madrid or online, with direct access in between when a decision cannot wait.
Peer group · Barcelona
The Round
A private peer collective in Barcelona for founders and CEOs of high-growth companies. Monthly sessions on live issues with people who carry the same weight. By application or nomination.
Leadership teams
Kuma Partners
My institutional practice for leadership team offsites, enterprise operating models and the 14-Day Leadership Friction Diagnostic, run with partners who have led companies themselves.
Research & intellectual property
Why do some leaders excel at seeing possibilities but struggle with the systems needed to scale them?
Many founders have spiky cognitive profiles: ADHD, giftedness, dyslexia, autism or a combination that never received a label. The same wiring that lets them see around corners shapes how they delegate, decide and handle conflict once the company grows.
The Non-Linear Operating System is a forthcoming work developed in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Thomas Kluetter (IESE Business School) and Prof. Dr. Nicolas Deuschel (IE Business School), grounded in research and field analysis across more than 50 serial entrepreneurs and CEOs operating with a non-linear mind.
Bring the decision you have been circling.
Discuss a leadership challengeConfidential. Direct. No obligation to continue.