Co/Lab · 2026

Judgment takes longer to arrive than scope does.

Co/Lab is a confidential peer forum for high-impact leaders whose scope has outrun the experience they're still building — so judgment scales before the cost shows up in execution. Six to eight leaders at comparable scope, one per company, working real decisions together for twelve months.

6–8Leaders per cohort, carefully curated for comparable scope.

1Leader per organization. No competitive overlap in the room.

12Months of facilitated sessions. Decisions examined as they happen.

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

Considering Co/Lab FOR A LEADER on My team

Exploring Co/Lab for MYSELF

The problem

Promoting a high-impact leader into a bigger seat creates execution risk you can't see.

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.

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.

What sponsors see

Outcomes the business can see.

Sponsors invest in high-impact leaders to accelerate success in role. Here's what Co/Lab is built to produce.

01 · Decision velocity

High-stakes decisions resolve faster.

Leaders bring live decisions into the room. What was stuck for weeks gets examined from angles they didn't have. Decisions move — with conviction.

02 · Talent navigation

People decisions handled with greater judgment.

Succession calls, exits, politically charged hires. The decisions that compound authority when handled well — and damage it when not.

03 · Strategic execution

Initiatives and change efforts land.

Not the plan — the landing. Leaders develop pattern recognition for what makes execution stick at scope.

04 · Succession depth

High-impact leaders build enterprise perspective faster.

The gap between functional and enterprise scope is where succession plans break. Co/Lab closes it while peers can still challenge them.

Leaders on working with Carrie

The voices of leaders who've done the real work.

“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 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. Not 1:1 coaching. Not a classroom. Not networking. Leaders bring live decisions; peers examine them together. The mechanism is peer challenge, calibrated by a skilled facilitator — not curriculum.

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?

Organizations routinely sponsor multiple leaders — they are placed in different cohorts so each has a room where they can speak freely. We map leaders 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.