Helping founders and executive teams grow profit and people-focused impact with joy and ease at the center of the strategy. Renia (pronounced REE-nah) Carsillo is the founder of Realign Consulting. She believes her superpowers are pattern recognition and activating change. Since 2008, Renia and her team have helped more than 100 small and mid-sized companies build values-driven, people-first operating models, guided by two proprietary frameworks: Do Better Business™ and Values-Driven Marketing. Renia has worked side by side with impact-driven companies, multinational franchises, and B2B brands in some of the most traditional industries, from industrial manufacturing to government contracting. Her work sits at the intersection of people, systems, and habits. For a business to grow sustainably, these three must constantly realign, because alignment is an ongoing practice.
Fractional COO Stephanie Veraghen on Integrity & Community [Small Stage, Big Impact Podcast]
E68: Fractional Leadership, Business Integrity & the Power of Community with Show Up Awesome Founder, Stephanie VeraghenI sit down with my longtime project manager, friend, and colleague Stephanie Veraghen, a fractional COO who helped systematize my business more than a decade ago. We talk about what fractional operational support looks like for small businesses, how Stephanie uses HeartMath® tools to help leaders and teams respond instead of react, and how we’ve both built community and referral-driven businesses while working from home. Stephanie also shares why relationships and integrity have sustained her business for 15 years, and why she’s embracing a season of re-evaluation. Operational Support Isn’t Just for Big CompaniesStephanie Veraghen has been my project manager, friend, colleague, and sometimes business partner for more than a decade. Back when most of us in online business were flying by the seat of our pants, she was the one who helped me build real systems. Today, she runs a fractional chief operating officer business, a role that barely had a name when we met. Many small business owners still assume that level of support is out of reach, but Stephanie has spent her career proving otherwise. In this episode, I sit down with Stephanie to talk about fractional leadership, building community when you work from home, and the integrity that has sustained her business for 15 years. |
Renia Carsillo
Helping founders and executive teams grow profit and people-focused impact with joy and ease at the center of the strategy. Renia (pronounced REE-nah) Carsillo is the founder of Realign Consulting. She believes her superpowers are pattern recognition and activating change. Since 2008, Renia and her team have helped more than 100 small and mid-sized companies build values-driven, people-first operating models, guided by two proprietary frameworks: Do Better Business™ and Values-Driven Marketing. Renia has worked side by side with impact-driven companies, multinational franchises, and B2B brands in some of the most traditional industries, from industrial manufacturing to government contracting. Her work sits at the intersection of people, systems, and habits. For a business to grow sustainably, these three must constantly realign, because alignment is an ongoing practice.
Happy Tuesday, Reader! 2025 and 2026 have been the best two years, financially, in Realign Consulting’s 18-year history. In many ways, I’ve created the life I always said I wanted, and I’m at the peak of my career. If we kept going the way we’ve been going, with a few tweaks, 2027 could likely double our revenue. So why am I about to tell you that we’re making a major pivot in 2027? The best time to make a change is usually when it takes some courage, not when we’re being forced into it. Last...
Happy Tuesday, Reader! Not to brag, but about this time last year, we shared two hot takes on what we were watching in AI, and they've held up pretty well: The harder AI companies chased monetization, the less transformational their tools would become. The social web would keep getting less valuable for most micro businesses. So we’re doing it again. But first, let's recap. How Last Year’s AI Predictions Held Up On AI monetization: AI is still growing, and it will likely keep growing. But for...
E67: 3 Founders, 3 Paths to Building a Business That Lasts Three women founders, three very different starts. I sat down with Lisa Council of Mrs. Grout, Stephanie Veraghen of Show Up Awesome, and Stephanie Melvin of Sol to trade the real stories: a layoff two weeks before Christmas, five-year plans for 10 industries, and a corporate exit over integrity. Then we get into funding, how long it took each of us to reach $250k, why we were slow to pay ourselves, and selling from genuine care. Scan...