My name is Montse Monllau and I’m a Leadership Advisor specialised in Scalability Cultural Development.

I help tech startups that are scaling up, mid‑sized companies, and corporate teams in transformation grow fast without burning out their managers. Together we evolve their culture.

I see leadership development not as a side activity next to “real work”, but as the operating system of your culture. The way your managers prioritise, decide and communicate is what makes your culture scalable. Or not.

My path so far

I graduated in Economy/Business Administration, and later completed a Master’s degree in Managing Marketing and Communications.

I started my career managing a non‑profit organisation dedicated to health and food promotion. My boss was a powerful industrial lobby and my 6 years experience was full of learnings and successful achievements. That’s where I first saw how human behaviour, communication and systems interact in real life, and how business models can benefit from it. Changing the public mental positioning of nuts as a healthy food was a major goal we achieved.

I began my personal entrepreneurial journey in 2006:

• I co‑founded a B2C Nutritional Consultancy, which taught me a lot about consumers and patients of lifestyle services and products.

• We later pivoted into B2B, serving marketing solutions mainly to food and healthcare brands and organisations in Spain, and collaborating with creative and digital advertising and communication agencies.

After the years I was accredited as a certified consultant in marketing and innovation by ACCIÓ. And since then I’ve supported organisations and companies as an external consultant on strategic marketing and innovation projects.

I returned to the uni in 2020, joining the first cohort of the Strategic Innovation ESADE Program: connecting my hands‑on work with a more structured perspective on innovation and strategy and frameworks that follow modern CIOs.

Over the years I’ve advised CEOs and founders of startups, managers and leaders of SMEs and corporates. And I still do.

For five years, I advised IBEC (Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia), working closely with teams in Fundraising, Product Marketing, Communications, Projects and Tech Transfer, as well as the Chief Operating Manager. That experience gave me a deep view into how complex organisations manage innovation, growth and cross‑functional work at the same time. And it also helped me understand the hidden need that lies at plain sight in most of the teams that are managing complexity: an insight that lighted up the next step in my career, since luckily this insight gave birth to the discovery of my new job and final vocation.

From strategy and communication to Scalability Cultural Development

At some point, I realised that one of the biggest challenges modern leaders face is how much time and energy they lose in inefficiencies and misalignment. Time that could be used for the work that really moves the needle.

That realisation gradually moved my work from pure marketing and strategic communication into:

• Leadership development,

• Operational and communication systems,

• And behaviour and culture change.

Today, my work sits at the intersection of:

• Strategic thinking – understanding where the company wants to go and what needs to change in leadership and culture to get there

• Operational and communication tools – designing hands‑on frameworks that managers can use in their actual workflow, often with GenAI support to move faster without losing judgement

• Behaviour change and culture – helping leaders adopt new ways of working that can truly scale across teams and time

This is what I call Scalability Cultural Development: using leadership development as the main lever to build a culture that can grow, adapt and stay healthy.

What I do with companies now

I work with mid‑managers, people managers, leads, individual contributors, CEOs, founders and culture champions in startups, scaleups, SMEs and corporates.

My programs and tools have been validated by high‑performance talent from companies like PEPSICO, MASTERCARD and startups from the NETMENTORA network in Catalonia.

In practice, this is what I do:

• Diagnosis
  I start by mapping what’s really slowing you down from the inside: invisible fires, bottlenecks, cultural friction, change fatigue and communication gaps

• Scalability Custom Plans
  I design personalised leadership development journeys for key leaders in your organisation – founders, C‑level and managers who are critical for your scaling story. These journeys are fully tailored to your business priorities and the cultural shifts you need

• Leadership Development Custom Plans (LDCPs)
  For larger corporate environments, I work on deeper, multi‑layer programs that align several levels of management with your transformation strategy and help build a robust, self‑sufficient leadership ecosystem

• Interim Scalability Cultural Advisor in-company for the leadership journey
  When a company is going through intense scaling or transformation, designing good plans is not enough. That’s when, for a few months, I can sit closer to their leadership team as an interim Scalability Cultural Advisor in-company for the Leadership Journey

My focus is always the same: helping champions think and do better. Improve. Reducing inefficiencies that are hidden at plain sight, I just help them see it and find simple ways to mend it. In ways that are manageable for them and transformative for the organisation

The I🖤NW “NEW WAYS” methodology

All of this comes together in the I🖤NW NEW WAYS OF WORKING methodology I’ve created: a pragmatic, different approach to Leadership Development and cultural change.

It’s built around:

• NW-SMART™ tools: sustainable, modelable, actionable, repeatable and time‑saving for managers.

• A clear Scalability Cultural Development lens: we don’t just work on individual skills; we work on how leaders shape culture through priorities, decisions and communication.

• A “Think & Do” balance: leaders make mental space to think strategically and then test tools directly on their current challenges, with support and iteration.

Helping leaders save their teams a lifetime, by removing inefficiencies, clarifying priorities and making behaviour change doable. This is my professional priority.

Read me and reach me

I’m the author of NUDO, my weekly newsletter that has been sent every Monday since 2023 always written by me, no ghostwriter.

I’m also a partner of Tech Barcelona and BHH Health Hub, which keeps me close to founders, innovation ecosystems and healthtech communities.

If you want to understand how I think, the best way is to read me. I write in Spanish and English. For instance, some serious VC found interesting enough this article I have recently published in Medium (to share it with the startups of their portfolio).

If you want to see whether we’re a good fit to work together –or if you have a speaking or writing proposal– the next logical step is to reach me. Don’t be shy: Come and find me in Linkedin!

If you’d like to explore whether Scalability Cultural Development is what your company needs right now please get in touch.