Founder To Founder: COO Alliance's Cameron Herold

In this episode of Founder to Founder, an Inc. Arabia video series that sees entrepreneurs sharing their best insights for other entrepreneurs, Cameron Herold, founder of COO Alliance, a global peer community designed for seconds-in-command, offers his take on why a good CEO needs a good COO.   

With a wealth of experience coaching CEOs and COOs around the world, Herold likens the CEO–COO relationship to be like a marriage—and how finding the right fit can supercharge a company’s growth. “It's about the match with the entrepreneur and the COO,” he told us, on the sidelines of the Future Human 2025 summit in Dubai. “So, what makes a really good COO is the person who's really good at the stuff the entrepreneur's not, who really loves to do the stuff the entrepreneur doesn't love to do.” 

However, Herold says that having a COO isn’t just about operational support—they’re also instrumental in helping CEOs achieve what they’re really building for. “At the end of the day, entrepreneurs start a company for one of three reasons: to give them money, to give them free time, or to have that sense of accomplishment that they put the flag in the ground,” Herold says. “One of the reasons that they need a second in command is to help them get to those three goals more efficiently and faster.” 

According to Herold, entrepreneurs-turned-CEOs are often visionaries with unique strengths—and they also have blind spots. “There's a whole bunch of stuff that has to get done that they don't love to do, and there's a whole bunch of stuff that has to get done that they suck at,” he explains. “If you can get that second in command that likes to do those things, that is really good at those things, to leave the entrepreneur to only work in their area of genius, in their unique ability, everything gets supercharged.” 

But Herold also notes that building a successful CEO–COO partnership is more than just operational roles—it’s also about trust, communication, and alignment. “CEOs are not lesser competent versions of COOs,” he notes. “We see the world differently. We approach problems differently. We approach projects differently. We communicate differently. We need to be communicated to differently.” 

Check out the full video to hear more of Herold's insights!