Why The Right COO Can Make Or Break A Brand
Most founders aren’t thinking about brand identity when they hire a COO. They’re thinking about capacity, relief, and stability.
That’s a disadvantage, because brand and operations are not separate functions. They are deeply interdependent. They shape each other every day.
Consider this:
When you hire a COO, you are bestowing upon them the power to shape the environment in which your brand grows.
Founder Vision
Every founder carries a clear, even if often undocumented, vision for their brand’s identity:
the purpose it serves
the impact it’s meant to have
the experience customers and staff should have within its orbit.
That declaration of identity sets intention.
The actual brand is revealed in what the business does — how it behaves, how it relates, how it makes decisions, and how it creates experiences.
That reality is shaped by infrastructure.
A brand can be clearly articulated and still fail to live into its identity.
Operational Norms
While a founder’s declaration defines who the brand is meant to be, operational culture determines who the brand actually becomes.
Think about it this way…
A child may have strong innate potential, but that potential can be suppressed, distorted, or unrealized when the environment is a mismatch. Structural routines, boundaries, rhythms, and expectations either activate that potential or quietly work against it.
Brands are no different.
In practice, the COO is often the primary force designing and redesigning that environment.
Operations are not neutral. They teach the brand:
how to respond under pressure
how to handle conflict
how decisions are made
what gets prioritized
what quality actually means
how people are treated
what behaviors are rewarded or discouraged
These operational decisions become cultural norms that get imprinted on the brand, much like a child becomes entrained by their environment.
If the role of brand is to set, meet, and exceed expectations, then marketing and sales are responsible for setting expectations, leaving operations responsible for meeting and exceeding them!
The Most Important Condition For Growth
When those operational norms reinforce the founder’s vision and intended brand identity, the brand grows into itself; expectations are met and often exceeded.
When those norms contradict the intended identity, even subtly, friction accumulates, behavior distorts, and a default brand emerges.
If internal operations are out of integrity with the founder’s declared identity, no amount of external consistency can make up for it; the business starts to feel fragmented, promises are broken, trust is lost, and profitability suffers.
In other words, every system a COO designs sets developmental conditions:
routines
boundaries
communication norms
escalation paths
standards
expectations
The founder (we hope) has already defined the intended reality.
The COO’s job is to ensure the operating systems realize that potential, rather than undermining, constraining, or compromising it.
The Point
A brand is a living system. Founders declare identity. Marketing and sales attract the right customers by setting expectations. Operations create the environment where those expectations can be met and exceeded over and over again. Hire accordingly, because once you choose the person who sets the conditions, you’ve chosen the person who determines what kind of brand actually comes to life in the world.
Ready To Raise Your Brand Right?
You can’t operationalize what hasn’t been clearly articulated.
Get your complimentary Brand IdQ™ Identity Snapshot on our website — a fast, founder‑friendly way to surface your brand’s core identity patterns.
Done with DIY? Schedule your Brand IdQ™ Profile Workshop and walk away with a clear, shared declaration your COO and leadership team can actually build from.
Who We Are
"We don’t create brands, because we truly believe that every business already has a brand. Rather, our role is to help founders and their teams embody the brand fully, express it with more clarity, and expand its influence and impact with more confidence."
~ Charlie Birch, Author of On Raising Brands + Founder and Creative Director @ Humaniz Collective
Bringing a brand to market is just the beginning of your brand’s development and life story.
And that’s where we come in!
We’re creative, marketing and operational experts working together to ensure brands come to life from the inside out.
We support brands throughout their lifecycle across three phases of service:
Brand Strategy
Brand Design
Brand Stewardship
If you’re looking for a brand partner to walk beside you, ensuring your brand grows up healthy and strong, makes good life choices, and attracts the right people into its orbit, Humaniz Collective is the obvious choice.
Engage with Brand IdQ - our complimentary brand strategy generator - and let us prove our worth.
