About us

The d.MBA’s mission is to show that companies can be run more thoughtfully and also be successful in the business sense.

We see designers as agents of that mission. We believe that the world would be a better place if more designers* led companies.

*anyone who puts people over profit

Our Story

The company was founded in 2017 by Alen Faljic, an ex-IDEO business designer, who wanted to bridge the worlds of business and design. Alen realized that the lack of business literacy is the biggest obstacle for design community aspirations.

Alen's first experiments involved an email course and podcast, which led to a more thorough and impactful version of the solution, the d.MBA program. The first intake of the d.MBA program took place in 2018 with 10 students from around the World.

With each intake, the d.MBA team has been making small adjustments and improvements in the format and content, leading to a creation of a new category of online courses called MiCCs. The focus of MiCCs is on education, personal growth, and impact, not on certificates and content distribution. We are proud to say that our completion rate is 97%, have a student rating of 9+/10, and we've managed to accumulate dozens of success stories of our students along the way.

Today, the d.MBA alumni community is hundreds of designers strong and still growing. If you share our mission and beliefs, join us.

Our Values

  • You can enable someone to write by giving them a pen and paper. But to truly empower them, you have to give them confidence and skills. Only a confident and skilful writer creates work that can move our society into new directions. Our job is not done when students finish the course. We want to empower our alumni to become design leaders and guide us to a more thoughtful future.

  • Education is not about the piece of paper you get in the end. It is about skill acquisition and behavioral change. That's why the d.MBA approach is focused on rapid skill acquisition and deliberate practice. We break down business into relevant sub-skills, which you practice on real world case studies, so you can start using business skills in days, not months.

  • Our impact is our most important metric. While many products (especially education) water down quality for scalability, we put student impact first. We believe that we are successful if our students are successful. And we are all successful if our society is successful. This is why we at the d.MBA promote stories of circular economy and sustainability. We design our company the same way. We want it to be a case study for designers and entrepreneurs, proving that thoughtful approach can lead to good business results.

  • In order to achieve our mission, we want to be around for the long term. Our job is not done when students finish the program. We support them through various alumni activities so they can turn business confidence into mastery and real impact. Therefore, we're dedicated to running the d.MBA differently. No investors. No quarterly reports. No expectations of hyper growth and rich exits. We believe we can create more value by existing, not exiting.

Our Team

Alen Faljic
founder and CEO

Alen's passion lies in the intersection of business, design, and education worlds. He makes sure that the content of d.MBA program is exactly what designers want and need to gain business confidence and impact.

Klara Faljic
design and operations

Klara takes care of the UX processes at the d.MBA. Additionally, she makes sure that d.MBA team is functioning well by overseeing all internal operations and processes.

Mersi Silec
experience manager

Mersi runs our sales and admission process to help us shape diverse cohorts. During the program, she makes sure that students have everything they need to succeed.

Tom Prior
program director

Tom shapes the d.MBA learning experience, making sure each cohort gets the structure, support and guidance they need to turn business knowledge into real-world impact. He also leads the marketing efforts that bring the right designers to the program: people who are ready to grow, lead and make a difference.

Jernej Gracner
design

Jernej stewards d.MBA's visual identity, ensuring our brand communicates with clarity and impact across all touchpoints. He translate our educational mission into compelling visual experiences that resonate with our design-focused audience.

Have a question? Send us an email at hello@d.mba or connect with us on social media.

We are looking forward to hearing from you!