About the author

Szilard Kacso.

Researcher, consultant, and founder. Working at the intersection of organizational design, behavioral science, and the structures behind executive decision-making.

TL;DR
  • Twelve+ years working with executive teams across Romania and broader CEE.
  • 300+ engagements delivered through Azimut: training, team building, leadership coaching.
  • Former Associate Professor at Babeș-Bolyai University (Management, Faculty of Economics & Business Administration) — taught from 2022 to 2025.
  • Doctoral research in Management at Babeș-Bolyai (2022–2025) with a focus on leadership.
  • Certified Freedom-Centered Leadership coach (WorldBlu, 2021), International Coaching Federation (2019), Situational Leadership (Human Invest, 2011).

Why I built this.

In a decade of working with executive teams across Romania and the broader region, I kept seeing the same structural problem present as different people problems. Communication breakdowns. Slow decisions. Cross-functional friction. The conventional response was always the same — train the people. The conventional response rarely worked, or worked only briefly.

Leadership Architecture is what came out of asking the harder question: what would it look like to redesign the structure that's producing the symptom?

It's a methodology grounded in field research with real executive teams, the academic literature on decision authority, and the practitioner experience of running operating companies myself. The goal is to make leadership work as a system — measurable, redesignable, maintainable.

Background.

Practitioner first. Researcher next. Author of the methodology.

Operating

Founder & CEO, Azimut

Founded 2014. Delivered 300+ training, team-building, and leadership engagements across Romania and the broader region. The first Romanian organization recognized as a "Freedom-Centered Workplace" (WorldBlu). Founding certified implementation partner for Leadership Architecture.

Academic

Doctoral research & teaching at Babeș-Bolyai University

Taught at the Management department of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration from 2022 to 2025. Doctoral research in Management with a focus on leadership. Babeș-Bolyai is Romania's largest university (~50,000 students).

Prior ventures

Earlier companies

Managing partner at uCode (2018–2022), an IT training company that reached profitability inside its first year. Co-founder of updateED, a microlearning platform integrated into Capability OS work.

Credentials

Certifications & education

Freedom-Centered Leadership (WorldBlu, 2021). International Coaching Federation (ICF, 2019). Situational Leadership (Human Invest, 2011). Certified Trainer (CNFPA, 2013). MBA, Babeș-Bolyai University (2012). Bachelor in Economy, Babeș-Bolyai (2010).

"A methodology earns the right to be used by being measurable, replicable, and falsifiable."

The methodology is built on field studies of scaling executive teams, the behavioral-science literature on decision authority, and ongoing benchmark data published in Insights. Every framework component is intended to be testable against real organizational outcomes.

Working language.

English and Romanian. Most engagements run in English; Romanian is available for local executive teams. Based in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Connect.

For speaking, research collaboration, or media — the fastest way is LinkedIn. For a structural read on your team, take the CEO Fit Diagnostic.

See whether this methodology fits your situation.

The fastest way: take the CEO Fit Diagnostic. Five minutes.