Who we are
LateralDeck was built by the team at Kuma Partners as a direct response to something we kept seeing in the rooms we work in.
Smart people. Real problems. And the same thinking, circling the same conclusions.
Having spent years facilitating leadership offsites, coaching C-suite executives, and running CEO peer groups across Europe, one pattern stands out clearly. No matter how much intelligence or commitment is present in the room, the ultimate bottleneck is always cognitive range: the ability to look at a high-stakes problem from an entirely new angle before committing to a strategic path.
LateralDeck is the tool we wished existed. Built to do in ten minutes what takes a skilled facilitator an hour to create: force a room of capable people to think differently, simultaneously, without hierarchy.
Kuma Partners
Kuma Partners is a team of seasoned coach-advisors dedicated to business and human growth. We work with founders and leadership teams to build the clarity, systems, and leadership capacity required to execute under disruption and uncertainty.
Our work spans executive coaching, CEO peer groups, and strategic offsites. The outcomes are tangible: faster execution, stronger leadership stability during growth, cleaner decision-making at the executive level, and organisations capable of absorbing increasing complexity while maintaining alignment.
We have spent decades in executive roles and coaching, shaping leadership cultures for companies navigating inflection points. We understand the stakes — because we have been in the room when they were highest.
Visit kuma.partners →Dr. Sven Mulfinger
Sven is the founder of LateralDeck and a partner at Kuma Partners. He works with founders and C-suite executives who are scaling fast, navigating complexity, or stuck in patterns that got them here but won't get them further.
Through executive coaching, Vistage CEO peer groups in Barcelona, and strategic offsites, Sven helps leaders see what they are missing, make harder decisions faster, and build teams that actually execute. His approach is direct, structured, and built on a simple conviction: the quality of the decision depends entirely on the quality of the thinking that preceded it.
He has worked with leadership teams at L'Oréal, GSK, Danone, Unilever, Bertelsmann, Scopely, and many others across Europe and beyond.
LateralDeck was born from that work: from watching what happens when a room full of capable people is finally asked to think from a direction they would never have chosen themselves.
What we believe
Three principles shape everything at Kuma Partners and everything in how LateralDeck was designed.
Clarity
Most problems persist simply because teams fail to see them clearly. True clarity avoids oversimplification, focusing instead on the discipline required to separate critical strategic data from everyday noise.
LateralDeck introduces this exact discipline. By shifting people away from their default perspectives, it requires every team member to evaluate the situation through a lens they did not choose.
Authenticity
The most useful perspective in a meeting often goes unspoken. Teams need conditions where genuine thoughts surface before the social pressure to agree takes over.
The silent reflection period in LateralDeck sessions provides exactly this space, allowing original insights to emerge before the room defaults to consensus.
Generosity
Generous thinking requires offering a genuine perspective even when it cuts against the room's current momentum. Teams need access to how you actually see the problem, rather than a polished version of what you think they want to hear.
The most effective lateral thinking sessions rely on this openness, creating a space where every participant contributes an angle only they can see.
LateralDeck and Kuma Partners
LateralDeck is a standalone Kuma Partners tool, built for any team or facilitator to address any complex problem independently. It also integrates directly into our broader Kuma Partners engagement models for leadership teams focused on long-term transformation.
To explore how LateralDeck supports a wider leadership development programme, or to discuss your team's thinking culture, let's start a conversation.
Get in touch with Kuma Partners →