Co/Lab · 2026

The decisions that define a leader are the ones they carry alone.

Not for lack of people to ask — because everyone they could ask has a stake in the answer. Co/Lab is six to eight leaders at comparable scope, one per company, working real decisions together for twelve months. A room with no stake in what they decide, only in how well they decide it.

6–8Leaders per cohort, chosen for comparable scope and complexity.

1Leader per organization. Nobody in the room competes with them or reports anywhere near them.

12Months of monthly sessions. Long enough that people start calling each other in between.

Book a 20-min call with Carrie →Company-sponsored seats. Sponsoring organizations welcome.

Sponsor

I'm considering Co/Lab for a leader on my team.

Keep reading ↓

Leader

I'm exploring Co/Lab for myself.

Yours is here →

The problem

You can't tell from where you sit whether it's working.

The room they need is one you can't be in.

The role expands overnight. Judgment takes longer.

They're making calls they've never made before — everyone they could test them on has a stake in the answer: their boss sets their rating, their peers may be their next boss or their next report, their team needs them to look certain.

Every conversation inside carries weight nobody put there on purpose. And you're not exempt. You're the one who championed them, which is exactly why they'll bring you the version that reassures you.

So the polished version is the one everyone gets. It's ready, and it's easier to tell than the unfinished version underneath it.

The unfinished version is where the decision actually lives. A strong leader can lay out the org chart, the timeline, the people, the risk, everything they've already put in motion — and still need weeks to get to the harder question: what they're doing that keeps it stuck.

Meanwhile it gets made alone, or it doesn't get made. The cost shows up as slowed execution, second-guessed people calls, and strategic bets that don't land.

Co/Lab is a room where a leader can put the unfinished version on the table in front of people carrying the same weight.

For leaders

Reading this as the leader, not the sponsor?

The rest of this page is written for whoever would put you forward.

Yours is here →

What sponsors see

What you'd actually notice.

Sponsors put leaders forward to help them succeed in the role. Here is what Co/Lab is built to produce.

Decisions stop sitting on their desk.

The call that's been open three weeks gets made. Not because anyone rushed them — because they finally said the uncertain part out loud to people who could do something with it.

The people calls get better.

Succession, exits, the politically loaded hire. These are the decisions that build a leader's authority when handled well, and quietly cost them when they aren't.

Change efforts land.

Not the plan — the landing. They start recognizing what makes execution stick at this altitude, mostly by watching seven other people try it.

They start thinking past their own function.

The jump from functional to enterprise perspective is where succession plans usually break. It's an easier jump to make while peers can still tell them they aren't there yet.

For leaders

Reading this as the leader, not the sponsor?

The rest of this page is written for whoever would put you forward.

Yours is here →

Leaders on working with Carrie

Better you hear it from them.

“Carrie has a way of connecting with people on a deep level that makes it possible for her to help unstick you when you’re in a situation you don’t really want to be in.”

Ryan FuchsCOO, Thrivable

“A broad toolkit and a sharp instinct for which tool fits the moment. She adapts frameworks into direct, practical language based on what the situation actually calls for.”

Mandy MillerBusiness Leader, Level20 at Progressive Insurance

“She leads with empathy and quiet authority. In our peer forum of founders and business owners, she quickly creates trust and guides even the strongest personalities toward clarity and decisive forward progress.”

Amanda MayanCEO, MAN Holdings

Founder

Carrie Gladstone built Co/Lab from two decades of experience, as a leader, working with leaders.

Carrie works with senior leaders navigating complexity, growth, and change management. Her background spans leadership roles at Deloitte, Progressive, Georgetown University, and venture-backed startups, where she led teams at the intersection of strategy, operations, and organizational leadership. Co/Lab is the room she needed, and now creates for senior leaders leaning in to their growth edge.

Carrie has facilitated hundreds of leadership and strategy sessions and is a Certified Coach and EO Forum Moderator. She's known for pairing broad frameworks with practical implementation.

Practice
Executive coaching, facilitation and change management, senior leadership advisory.

ExperienceTwo decades of strategy and operational leadership — Deloitte, Progressive, Georgetown, venture-backed startups.

Certification & Education
UC Berkeley MBA/MPH, Georgetown University BA, Certified Coach, EO Forum Seed Moderator,

Program · How it works

A curated cohort, intentionally composed.

01 · Who

Senior leaders at expanded scope

Company-sponsored seats for high-impact leaders. Curated cohorts, matched by scope and complexity — not by title or function.

02 · Room

6–8 per cohort, one per org

Non-competing organizations. Candor is the architecture, not an aspiration.

03 · Cadence

Monthly, facilitated

Twelve months. Leaders bring real situations. The group examines them in structured dialogue.

04 · Output

Sharper decisions, stronger judgment

Leaders apply insights between sessions and return with new experience. Judgment compounds.

Questions sponsors ask

What sponsors want to know before they recommend a leader.

Has this model been proven?

The forum model Co/Lab is built on comes from EO and YPO, where more than twenty thousand founders and CEOs run it. Ask them what the most important investment they make in their business is, and a startling number will name their forum. What's adapted here is the context: leaders inside larger organizations, a level or two down, where the stakes of being candid inside the building are completely different.

Why twelve months?

Because a leader's read on a problem and their read on themselves inside it move at completely different speeds. The problem shows up in a week. Seeing what they're doing that keeps it there can take months. That's not a flaw — it's the pace of the thing.

It's also why the room has to be the same people every month. By month four they know each other's patterns well enough to name them, and that's when it gets precise.

Is this coaching, training, or a peer forum?

A facilitated peer forum. Leaders bring a live decision and the room works on it — hard questions, real pushing, and nobody telling them what to do. There's no curriculum and no speaker. It isn't coaching and it isn't a class.

What kind of leader belongs here?

Leaders operating within multi-layered organizations, owning material business or organizational outcomes, ready to lean in and do the work. Often within ~24 months of expanded scope — frequently succession-track — with the organization actively behind them.

How confidential is it, really?

Confidentiality is the foundation. One leader per organization and deliberate composition across non-competing companies means leaders can discuss situations they could not raise anywhere else. Our Co/Lab facilitator holds that agreement explicitly from session one. All participants agree to confidentiality.

What is the time commitment?

Four hours per monthly session, plus two hours of preparation. Six hours a month, twelve months. Designed to fit inside the calendar of a leader whose calendar is the constraint — not to add another burden to it.

Can we sponsor more than one leader?

Yes — a company can sponsor more than one leader. They're placed in different cohorts so each has a room where they can speak freely. We map each leader to the right cohort based on scope.

How do you measure whether it’s working?

Success criteria are co-created with the sponsor and the participant in the first weeks of the program — the specific decisions, transitions, and capability gains the sponsor is investing against. Those are tracked through the twelve months and reviewed with the sponsor at close. Built for sponsors who want a real read on the investment, not a satisfaction survey.

The decisions that define a leader are the ones they carry alone.

You can't tell from where you sit whether it's working.

What you'd actually notice.

Decisions stop sitting on their desk.

The people calls get better.

Change efforts land.

They start thinking past their own function.

Better you hear it from them.

Carrie Gladstone built Co/Lab from two decades of experience, as a leader, working with leaders.

A curated cohort, intentionally composed.

Senior leaders at expanded scope

6–8 per cohort, one per org

Monthly, facilitated

Sharper decisions, stronger judgment

What sponsors want to know before they recommend a leader.

Start with a 20-minute call.