Scaling the structure
The organization has outgrown the way it decides. Decision rights, capacity and the shape of the functions get redesigned, with the people who will operate the result.
Who you work with
Built from inside the work
Practicing since 2019, incorporated as a Swiss GmbH in Zurich in 2026. Two threads run through all of it: scaling the structure, and evolving the values and culture inside it. Delivered in eight languages between the two of us.
The path
Engineer first. Then the organization around the engineers.
I thought I was fixing the product. In reality I was fixing the organization around it. That is the work I have done full time since 2017.
Bar Schwartz
Bar
- 2009Software engineer, then engineering lead.
- 2014Product leadership in a scaling fintech.
- 2017Transformation work at McKinsey, then Capgemini Invent.
- 2019Lead2Coach, founded as an independent practice.
Filipe
- 2010Self-employed, and every year since.
2022The two paths meet at Capgemini Invent.
Together
- 2023 and 2024Bayer Radiology, the first engagement we ran together. One cohort in each year, Filipe subcontracting into Bar’s practice.
- 2026Lead2Coach GmbH, in Zurich, with Filipe a co-founder of it.
Evolving values and culture
The behaviors on display are not the ones anybody asked for. What is actually rewarded gets mapped, and the value set is written to a standard a team lead can use.
Since 2019
What Lead2Coach has actually done
One thread or the other, every time. Two organizations are described rather than named, because naming them is theirs to agree and not ours to assume.
Culture and values
Doodle
A two-year program after a scale-up change of executive leadership.
- Culture mapping: what actually serves the organization, what does not, and the behaviors really on display
- A value and behavior system, made operational rather than published
- Coaching cohorts from team level to executive, more than thirty leaders
Intrapreneurship
A medical technology company of 1,500 people
A European program that makes culture operational across the whole company.
- Innovation champions upskilled to carry it themselves
- The wider organization brought along through mentorship and collaborative problem solving
- Real project work, and the success structure built around it
Role design and upskilling
Bayer Radiology
A global solution management program, now official in the Bayer Radiology Academy.
- The solution manager role redesigned to own the whole lifecycle, from idea to retirement
- Portfolio management, design thinking, agile and lean, on tailored materials and real cases
- Leaders from APAC, Europe and the US, then a cohort adding sales and customer care
Also since 2019
- EppendorfCulture alignment and leadership upskilling
- AgileLABTrainings across nine ICAgile tracks
- A non-profit in BelgiumFinance process redesign, through Stragilon
Organizations we have worked with
- Bayer Radiology
- Doodle
- InstaFreight
- Everphone
- Eppendorf
- EFTA
- Layer
- Inotec
Everything before May 2026 was delivered by the founders in their own practice, before Lead2Coach GmbH existed.
Before 2019
The same problem, from inside the company
The same problems from the inside rather than from across a table: an engineering function doubled, five companies merged into one, and a scale-up lived from within it.
Signavio
Led the engineering transformation from 60 to 130 engineers, across four products.
- Built the product function from nothing, and trained leaders up to C level
- Engineering aligned with go to market, a foundation that carried into the later SAP acquisition
medneo
Post-merger integration, and then a company that had not existed before.
- Five acquired companies integrated into one business
- A new entity built separately from the original one
Raisin (WeltSparen)
Product manager inside the scale-up, rather than advising one.
- A founding team and senior hires from corporates: two sets of expectations
- The problem lived before it was ever diagnosed for somebody else
The consulting years, from 2017 at McKinsey and then Capgemini Invent, were operating model design and organizational diagnostics, including across global pharma R&D. Those clients are not ours to name, so they are not named here.
How Bar works, in her own words
Four things that decide how it goes
Values are decision infrastructure
A value is real when a team lead uses it to make a hard call without escalating.
I adapt to your culture
Some organizations are scientific and want structure. Others are creative. Same outcome, different route.
Functions differ, the system holds
R&D should not run like finance. They still have to work together.
AI belongs in the organization, not only the product
Which decisions people can safely make with AI is a question of cognitive profile and incentives, not tooling.
The two of us
Both of us have carried the mandate ourselves
Between us, an engineering organization doubled, five companies merged into one, and AI transformation run from inside a global insurer. The job of getting a change funded and agreed was ours before it was anybody else’s.
Bar Schwartz
Co-founder & Managing Director
Redesigns how organizations decide and deliver: scaled Signavio’s engineering organization, ran organizational diagnostics across global pharma R&D, and coaches the leaders who carry the change. Wrote a book on leading through continuous technological change.
At Capgemini Invent
The AI operating model
Delivers in
- English
- German
- Hebrew
Qualifications
BSc Software Engineering (Shenkar, IL) · MSc Management (ESMT Berlin, DE) · MSc Psychology (Arden, UK) · PCC-ICF · Marshall Goldsmith Certified · ICAgile Authorized Instructor · SAFe SPC
Before that
McKinsey · Signavio · medneo · Raisin
Filipe Saldanha
Co-founder & Managing Director
Operating-model and governance redesign at enterprise scale. Right now leading AI transformation inside one of the world’s largest insurers. Earlier, rebuilt the operating model of a large, enterprise-scale IT organization.
At Capgemini Invent
Where AI meets workforce transformation
Delivers in
- English
- German
- Portuguese
- Spanish
- Italian
- French
- Mandarin
Qualifications
MSc Systems Engineering (RWTH Aachen) · ICAgile certified coach (ICP-ACC, ICP-ENT)
Before that
Nuance Communications
Where the experience comes from
- Manufacturing
- Automotive
- Insurance
- Banking
- Pharma
- Healthcare
Sectors, not names. The large firms behind this experience were reached through former employers, so they are theirs to name and not ours. Based in Zurich, ten minutes from Oerlikon.
Next
Pick one thing, and let’s get it moving
Tell us about one decision that keeps getting stuck, and who would need to agree to it. That is enough to start.