Cameron HeroldFounder of the COO Alliance & Invest In Your Leaders Training

You Don't Need a COO Yet

10 May 2026 · 1 min

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0:49

Cameron Herold tells CEOs to hire an executive assistant first, not a COO. Audit your tasks, find the $15-per-hour work, and delegate it. Only then hire a second-in-command to handle what actually needs a leader.

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The CEO wants to get a bunch of stuff off their plate, but a bunch of that stuff is really admin work. It's the $15 an hour work that an EA could do for you. You don't want to hire a COO to do $15 an hour tasks. So if you don't have an executive assistant, you are one. Let that one burn in for a second, but I'll get a bunch of this stuff off your plate and get an EA to do that stuff first. The second hire is your second in command, and it might be a director of operations or a VP of operations. Or a COO, but really start by getting the admin off your plate first. And I guarantee that almost everybody listening has that as an opportunity today because at the end of the day, the CEO is just frustrated with all of the stuff that's on their plate and they don't do an activity inventory and analyze the cost of all of those things on an effective hourly rate basis.