How Herb Cogliano takes leaders from Overwhelm to Alignment

When Herb Cogliano left the CEO’s chair after more than 35 years in business, he knew his next chapter would be about making an impact. Having led his own companies through hypergrowth, shifting markets, and a successful exit, Herb knew he wanted to give other leaders what he wished he’d had decades earlier: a way to grow boldly without losing themselves, or their people, in the process.

What he sees over and over are founders weighed down by decisions and strained by an infrastructure that can’t support expansion. They lack the systems to expand and risk watching growth turn from an opportunity into a liability: margin erosion, burnout, and stalling the very momentum they work so hard to create.

Today, that pairing isn’t just the foundation of his coaching—it’s a non-negotiable.

Client Challenges Before Herb + Align

When leaders first approach Herb, the business rests on the founder’s shoulders. “A lot of them, when they come to me, are initially very founder-led oriented,” Herb says. “They’re at the top, they’re making the majority of the decisions, they have some great people that they hired that could execute. But the biggest challenge is scalable leadership. Building out a leadership team that can be independent, accountable, and autonomous.”

Alongside leadership gaps, there’s infrastructure strain. “Now we have more employees, more customers, more products, more locations,” Herb explains. “That creates complexity in helping them set up systems that help them deal with that.”

And finally, the external pressure: “New competition. Commoditization of your pricing. AI, tariffs, you name it, but are they able to adapt to the new environment?”

The consequences are predictable. Without systems, priorities live in Word docs, Excel sheets, and slide decks. Meetings become update marathons that end in finger-pointing. Deliveries get missed, service levels slip, and new orders threaten to be canceled. Leaders feel like they are running faster while falling further behind.

Yet these companies share a redeeming trait: they are ambitious. Most look to double in three years. They are strong learners who are ready to develop themselves and their teams. But they need a system to help them do it.

The Non-Negotiable

Herb’s thesis: successful growth comes from scalable leadership + scalable infrastructure + adaptive strategy, all operationalized in one platform.

He proved it in his own companies. But when he discovered Align in 2018, he realized it was the system he had been missing.

I believe in it so strongly, it’s a requirement. We only use the Align software as part of our [client] engagement. And I practice what I preach—I use it for my own business, too.

For Herb, Align isn’t an add-on. It’s the operating room where the real strategic work happens. BHAGs, quarterly priorities, KPIs, and meeting rhythms all come together in one place, visible and trackable in real time. Without it, clients fall back into old traps—plans scattered in notebooks, strategies fading into the background, and growth once again at risk.

Starting at the Top

Herb begins by pulling the senior team into one room (virtually or in person) and asking the essential questions:

• Why do we exist?
• What’s our big, hairy, audacious goal?
• Who is our ideal customer?

The answers go straight into Align’s One Page Strategic Plan.

The difference is immediate. The plan is alive, accessible, and visible to the entire team.

From there, meeting rhythms lock the vision into daily behavior. Daily huddles, weekly meetings, and quarterly resets all run from Align, powered by live data updated by the key contributors.

“How do we not lose sight of this vision on a day-to-day basis?” Herb asks. “By making it visible, shareable, and trackable for the whole company.”

The Cascade Effect

The rollout is deliberate. Year one is about mastering the process at the executive level. Then, when the timing is right, Herb cascades Align down through the organization.

That’s when the entire culture begins to shift.

He recalls a global client where the senior team embraced Align immediately, but the real spark came later.

It was amazing, once middle management got it, they started implementing it... having their meeting rhythms, tracking priorities, and looking at critical number KPIs. It absolutely created more momentum, more engagement, more buy-in, and better results. Once they had their own meeting rhythms, KPIs, and dashboards, it became part of the culture.

AI, but Make It Practical

One hesitation new clients have? The setup.

That’s where Herb leans on Align’s AI tools. In minutes, they can spin up department-specific One Page Plans, KPI dashboards, or create clear quarterly priorities with built-in roadmap bullets.

“It gets you 80% of the way,” Herb says. “Then you refine the last 20% for your exact situation. Suddenly, instead of staring at a blank page, you’re already moving.”

Between the Meetings

Coaching isn’t just about the big sessions—it’s about what happens in between.

Herb gets automated weekly performance reports from Align for every client, plus copies of their meeting recaps.

It makes my life so much easier,” he says. “I can follow up with my client, share some additional insights from the performance report, and help them maybe not miss some of those things.”

This real-time insight lets him be a proactive partner, not just a periodic facilitator.

What Success Looks Like

One consumer brand client now operates across Asia with over 150 employees. Since implementing Align, they’ve grown top line, gross margin, and profits by more than 20% every year. They’ve been named a Best Place to Work and are a pillar in their community.

Another, in the natural stone business, went from loosely connected departmental updates to a unified company with a shared purpose, quarterly priorities, and a common language for execution.

Why It Works

Herb sums it up simply:

Align is part of a holistic solution. My clients aren’t investing in software—they’re investing in a path to their bigger future. The software just makes it possible to actually get there.

By making Align the heartbeat of his coaching process, Herb ensures his clients’ strategies aren’t just aspirations—they’re living, breathing actions tracked and celebrated daily.

And in Herb’s world, that’s non-negotiable.