A decision that keeps coming back.
Everyone understands the problem, yet the decision keeps getting postponed, diluted or reversed.
Dr. Sven Mulfinger · Independent counsel for founders and CEOs
A thinking partner for the decisions you cannot delegate.
For the moments that weigh most: a turning point for the company, friction inside the executive team or a call that only you can make.
Start a confidential conversation I read every message myself. No obligation to continue.
Why leaders get in touch
When the usual answers stop working.
Most founders and CEOs who contact me for advisory or a sparring partner arrive with one of these three situations.
A leadership team that has become the bottleneck.
Capable people, overlapping responsibilities, and too many decisions still landing back on your desk.
A company that has outgrown the way you lead it.
The business scaled, but the way decisions are made and shared did not change with it.
Recognise one of these? Start with a confidential first conversation
How I think
Most problems arrive with a label already on them.
“My team does not take enough ownership.”
The obvious response is to work on accountability: clearer roles, tighter follow-up, perhaps a different person in one of the seats.
The question I ask first is what the team has learned. If every important decision eventually comes back to the CEO's desk, escalating is the rational thing to do.
The useful question then becomes what the CEO has to stop doing for real ownership to become possible.
Background
I have carried the responsibility too.
- years building start-ups
- 20
- years building start-ups
- founders, MDs and C-suite leaders guided
- 100+
- founders, MDs and C-suite leaders guided
- working languages
- 4
- working languages
- business schools I research with
- 2
- business schools I research with
The operator
Twenty years building start-ups and serving as CEO in the corporate world, then founding Kuma Partners. I know what it is to carry the whole company.
The scientist
Molecular genetics, chemical engineering and a doctorate taught me to look for the mechanism underneath the symptom.
The advisor
More than 100 founders, managing directors and C-suite leaders guided across confidential 1:1 advisory, executive peer councils and board-level interventions.
The researcher
Recent research on cognitive preferences, within and beyond the neurodivergent spectrum, and how they shape the way people lead.
Case studies
Results from the room.
Three real engagements and what changed for the leaders involved. Confidentiality prevents names, not the substance.
Scale-up CEO · Series B15 hours a week back, execution pace doubledThe founder bottleneckEvery decision bounced back to the founder. Clear boundaries for team decisions gave back 15 hours a week and doubled execution pace.Read the caseClose the case
1 · The situation
Strategic execution was stalling. Every decision bounced back to the founder's desk, creating operational gridlock and executive burnout.
2 · 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.
3 · What changed
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.
Industrial B2B · €80M ARRAn explicit agreement on margin versus volumeArtificial alignmentA team that agreed on Monday and split by Thursday. The cause was structural, and an explicit agreement on margin versus volume resolved it.Read the caseClose the case
1 · The situation
The executive team agreed unanimously in Monday meetings, yet commercial and operations were executing conflicting priorities by Thursday.
2 · What lay beneath
Commercial incentives directly contradicted production capacity. The conflict was structural, while the team kept treating it as a clash of personalities.
3 · What changed
We surfaced the unaddressed economic trade-offs in a facilitated session and replaced cosmetic harmony with an explicit operating agreement on margin versus volume.
Founder and chairman · InternationalOne year of independent sparringThe lonely decisionA founder facing a multi-market transition with nobody inside to challenge them. A year of independent sparring shaped a transition that protected culture and shareholder value.Read the caseClose the case
1 · The situation
Facing a complex multi-market transition, the founder had nobody inside the organisation who could challenge their logic without an agenda of their own.
2 · What lay beneath
The leadership team was managing the founder's temperament instead of stress-testing the valuation models and governance trade-offs.
3 · What changed
I acted as an independent, unvarnished sparring partner for a year, pressure-testing blind spots and structuring a transition that protected the company culture and shareholder value.
In their words
What clients say.
“Sven always seems to have just the right perspective, tool, process, or question to bring to the table. Sven’s style and insights made a real difference for me.”
“Sven has a rare ability to quickly understand complex leadership and business situations, cut through noise, and challenge assumptions in a constructive way.”
“He has a way of asking questions that stop you in your tracks, the kind that make you pause, rethink assumptions, and see your own situation more clearly. Over time, that changes how you think, not just what you decide.”
Research
Why do some leaders excel at seeing possibilities but struggle with the systems needed to scale them?
Many founders and executives have a spiky cognitive profile. The same wiring that helps them see around corners also shapes how they delegate, make decisions and handle conflict as their companies grow. Thinking differently brings distinct advantages, but it also comes with its own particular challenges.
The Non-Linear Operating System, developed in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Thomas Kluetter (IESE Business School) and Prof. Dr. Nicolas Deuschel (IE Business School), draws on field research involving more than 50 serial entrepreneurs and CEOs with non-linear cognitive profiles, including ADHD, giftedness, dyslexia and autism.
The research explores the similarities and differences in how they think, lead, make decisions and navigate the challenges of scaling a business. Its aim is to understand how their distinctive cognitive strengths shape their leadership, where friction tends to emerge, and how they can build an operating system that works with their minds rather than against them.
Explore the research at neurodisruptors.com (opens in a new tab)
Ways to work together
Three ways to work together.
1:1 advisory is the core of my work. The other two exist for when the tension sits elsewhere: between peers, or inside the executive team.
1:1 Executive Advisory
Confidential counsel for the founder or CEO carrying the final call. Two sessions a month for six or twelve months, in Barcelona, Madrid or online, with direct access in between when a decision cannot wait.
The Round
A private peer group in Barcelona for founders and CEOs of growing companies. Monthly sessions on live issues with people who carry the same weight. By application or nomination.
Leadership teams
When the friction sits between executives, the work moves to Kuma Partners, my practice for leadership team offsites, operating models and the 14-Day Leadership Friction Diagnostic, run with partners who have led companies themselves.
kuma.partners (opens in a new tab)Offsites (opens in a new tab)
Considering an engagement?
See how 1:1 advisory works, from the first conversation to the terms, and the twelve questions leaders ask before getting in touch. How 1:1 advisory works →
A first conversation
Bring the problem you have not been able to solve.
Tell me what is happening, what you have tried and what is at stake. We will work out together whether working with me would make a difference.
Discuss a leadership challenge Confidential. Direct. No obligation to continue.