COO Alliance: Peer Experience Fills the Gap When Yours Runs Out

Executive overview

Michael Sanfiorenzo, COO of Philip Jefferies, joined the COO Alliance three years ago after outgrowing his own experience as his company scaled from 33 to 370 people across 15 global locations. Without peers who had faced the same problems, major decisions felt like guesses — a risk he describes as potentially "disastrous financially and operationally." The core insight: when your own experience ceiling is hit, a trusted peer network becomes the only reliable substitute. The Alliance gave him real-time access to COOs who had already navigated the exact situations he was facing, turning uncertainty into informed action.

The problem: outgrowing your own experience

• Scaled two companies past his prior experience level — at his last company grew from employee 6 to 240 people
• Past that threshold, decisions defaulted to "best guesses" rather than grounded experience
• Reading books and hearing speakers doesn't replicate talking to someone actively living the same challenge
• Wrong guesses at scale can cause serious financial and operational damage

What the Alliance actually delivers

• Direct peer conversations on specific, live problems — not generic advice
• On the morning of the interview, reached out via a conversation circle about opening a second distribution facility
• Peers share where the bumps were, what they didn't anticipate — exactly the blind spots that matter
• Cameron Herold's in-room prompts surfaced avoided decisions, including a difficult personnel call that improved team retention
• Net effect: more confident decisions, willingness to tackle uncomfortable situations, stronger A-player retention

The verdict

• Describes the Alliance as "a missing leg on a stool" without it — strategy and problem-solving become unstable
• Recommends it as a "no brainer" for any COO wanting a network of peers who have likely already solved today's problems
• Value is in community and candid, experience-backed conversation — not content or curriculum