A Note from Mladen
I founded Mount13 to bring something different to consulting — a more human, grounded, and creative way to help businesses grow.
I spent over a decade at Bain & Company, learning from some of the best mentors I could have hoped for. I learned how complex transformations succeed or fail, how to communicate with clarity, and how to build teams that deliver results. But most of all, I learned that the best consulting happens when structure meets empathy — when you stay focused on outcomes without losing sight of the people who make them possible.
Over time, I wanted to take the best of that experience and build something more personal and flexible — an approach driven by client outcomes, but designed for the realities of modern leadership. That became Mount13.
Today, I help leadership teams modernise how their marketing and commercial engine works — bringing strategy, marketing, and finance together, with AI and technology as accelerators, not distractions.
Over the years, I’ve worked with leadership teams across industries — from global brands to high-growth scale-ups — helping them align strategy, marketing, and commercial performance to build sustainable growth.
Where I Come From
Before founding Mount13, I spent twelve years at Bain & Company, leading strategy, marketing, and operating-model transformations across Europe, the Middle East, and Australia. It taught me the fundamentals of business, the mechanics of complex change, and the value of mentorship — lessons I draw on daily.
My path to business wasn’t typical. Before Bain, I spent eight years at the University of Cambridge, completing a PhD in International Studies. Academia taught me the discipline of rigour — that insight only matters if it changes behaviour. My doctoral research on post-conflict state-building became a study in transformation under pressure — why some nations recover and others don’t. The same truth applies in business: success depends less on resources and more on belief, ownership, and leadership. I moved from research into business because I wanted to apply that same depth of thinking to practical problems: insights that drive behaviour, and behaviours that drive results.
Long before either of those worlds, I trained and competed in karate, representing England at national level from my teens into my early twenties. It shaped how I think about discipline, respect, and follow-through — the idea that design changes nothing without daily practice. In many ways, transformation work isn’t so different: the success lies not in design but in disciplined performance, day in and day out.
That lesson is deeply personal. As a child, I fled war-torn Yugoslavia with my family. We lost our home and rebuilt from scratch. That experience shaped my understanding of resilience, motivation, and what “hard” really means. Clients sometimes say, “things seem more possible when you’re here.” Maybe that’s because I know what it means to rebuild — that progress starts long before conditions are perfect.
What Drives Me
“Transformation isn’t about technology — it’s about belief, ownership, and follow-through.”
Consulting can be relentless, and I’ve learnt that sustaining performance — for myself and for my clients — requires balance. Nature is my teacher there. At some point I realised that living in the countryside, surrounded by mountains, forests, and lakes, keeps me grounded. I spend mornings training, walking, or skiing with my family and our dog, Archie. That rhythm keeps me calm under pressure — it’s where my clients’ comment, “you’re a source of calm when things get intense,” truly comes from.
I’ve learnt that resilience and perspective come from the same place: knowing what matters. As a husband, father, son, and friend, I’ve learnt how connection, empathy, and care translate directly into leadership — whether it’s with a family, a team, or an organisation.
For me, strategy and transformation are never abstract. They’re human acts of leadership. The real work isn’t just in designing change, but in creating belief, alignment, and follow-through.
It’s that belief — that clarity, ownership, and perseverance matter more than circumstance — that shapes how I lead every transformation today.
