LEADERS & ORGANISATIONS
Organisations enter passages of transformation too.
Sometimes transformation is chosen. Sometimes what brought the organisation here can no longer support what comes next.
I work with the human system that makes transformation possible — the leaders, relationships, culture, behaviours and ways of working that need to evolve with it.
Organisational passages
Generational succession
A new generation steps into stewardship and must find its own relationship with legacy, authority and future ambition.
Leadership transition
A founder steps back, a new CEO arrives or authority moves into different hands.
Rapid scale
The organisation grows beyond the conditions in which its original way of operating emerged.
Disruptive innovation
Technology, AI, regulation or customer behaviour changes what is possible.
Strategic reorientation
The organisation moves towards a different market, business model or strategic direction.
External disruption
Political, economic or technological conditions change the environment in which the organisation previously succeeded.
Post-crisis reorganisation
A crisis raises a deeper question: should we really return to what existed before?
Merger & integration
Two organisations combine structurally before they become capable of operating as one.
Chosen reinvention
The organisation chooses to evolve while it is still successful — before necessity removes the choice.
About Marilena
My fascination in organisational transformation began with a recurring contradiction.
I have worked as a founder, innovation consultant, product leader, strategist and coach — inside startups and alongside organisations including Miele, BSH, LG Electronics and Infineon.
Across these environments, I became increasingly interested in a simple question: why can organisations have exceptional people, ambitious strategies and genuinely innovative ideas — and still struggle to transform?
The question became particularly visible during my work in innovation and product validation. Through conversations with more than 20 innovation and R&D leaders across Europe, I repeatedly encountered versions of the same challenge: stakeholder resistance.
What clients say
“Marilena helped me pause, reflect, and look at entrepreneurship from a more human perspective. Her thoughtful questions and calm approach challenged the way I think about leadership, decision-making, and the stories we tell ourselves.”
— Sambhav Jain
Successor
“Marilena is the first person I've met who truly comprehends the intricacies of the founding and growth process and can articulate it effectively. She made me realise that for my company to grow, I must also grow as an individual.”
— Johannes Bader
Founder, CEO
“Marilena brings a rare and valuable mix of strong business awareness and emotional intelligence, with practical insights for business leaders supporting both their teams and themselves.”
— Guy Sephton
Founder
Transformation is both human and systemic.
Human
Leaders and teams may need to evolve how they relate to identity, control, authority, uncertainty and one another — alongside the assumptions and behaviours they bring into everyday organisational life.
Systemic
Culture, relationships, ways of working and the systems that support people may also need to evolve so that the human system can support what the organisation is becoming.
Transformation happens through the interaction between the people experiencing and leading the passage and the organisational conditions in which they are trying to create something new.
How I work
I do not arrive with a fixed transformation blueprint.
We begin by understanding the passage the organisation and its people are actually inside — whether transformation has been consciously chosen or has become necessary because what exists today can no longer support what comes next.
What has changed?
What is different about the conditions now?
What remains vital?
What should be preserved and carried forward?
What has become constraining?
What may need to be released, redesigned or outgrown?
What is beginning to emerge?
What new possibilities, capacities or ways of operating are becoming available?
And throughout the work, we resist rushing towards an answer simply because it feels familiar. We go beyond the known answers and learn how to interact with the unknown.
The question remains:
What does the human system now need to become capable of?
Depending on the passage, the work may take the form of:
The Partnership
12-Week Organisational Transformation Partnership
For leaders and organisations who want to evolve the human system that will carry what comes next.
Over 12 weeks, I work with a leader or leadership team to make sense of the passage they are in and explore what the human system needs to become capable of. We look at the organisation systemically — exploring how leadership, relationships, culture, behaviours and ways of working are interacting with the transformation.
Together, we identify what remains vital, what may need to evolve, where new possibilities are emerging, and what can be tested in practice. The aim is to leave with greater clarity, stronger alignment and concrete experiments that strengthen the human system’s capacity to carry what comes next.
12 weeksTailored to the organisationFrom €8,000
My perspective
My work draws on experience as a founder, innovation consultant, product leader, strategist and coach. I have seen transformation approached as a strategy problem, a structural problem, a leadership problem and a human problem. In practice, these dimensions rarely transform separately. My focus is the human system — the leaders, relationships, culture, behaviours and ways of working that ultimately have to carry transformation into everyday organisational life. Where transformation also involves strategy, technology, structures, processes or operating models, my work can sit alongside the specialists leading those dimensions. Their focus may be what the organisation needs to change. Mine is the human system that makes that transformation possible.
Perhaps something in the way you lead and work together is ready to evolve.
You may be responding to a transformation already underway — or consciously choosing to explore what else could become possible. We can begin by understanding the passage you are actually inside.
Book a Free Exploration Conversation