Drive impact, with empathy.

Leadership coaching designed for scaling companies. Let me help you develop leaders at all levels who deliver business results and build engaged teams.

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Good leadership changes everything.

Better decision making

I help leaders at all levels sharpen perspective taking, lead by values, avoid biases, and navigate uncertainty with limited information. With sound decision-making across the organization, your business will adapt more smoothly and reach both business and team objectives faster.

More effective communication

I coach teams to communicate more effectively with proven frameworks for motivation, negotiation, persuasion, and mediation. This ensures clearer directions, better alignment, higher team motivation, and stronger stakeholder relationships.

Less growing pains

I work with you to anticipate challenges, prioritize competing demands, and adjust strategies as your business evolves. By navigating change proactively, you’ll maintain momentum, minimize disruption, and scale without sacrificing culture or performance.

More cohesive organization

I guide team leaders in designing and organizing teams to better align with your company’s strategic goals through different phases. I will also coach you and your People team to build and facilitate a values-driven culture that creates cohesion and fosters business growth.

Yet, leadership development often falls to the sidelines.

I get it. Effective leadership development takes time, and in a scaling business, something always feels more urgent. When you turn to outside help, most solutions are too generic, too theoretical, or simply not built for the pace and pressure you’re under. That's why I am uniquely positioned to help you!

Why partner with me:

Practical impact

Leadership advice is easy to find, the challenge is applying it to nuanced, complex real-world scenarios. I’ve built and led high performance teams in high growth environments, so I understand the pressure and challenges you're facing. I coach relevant, research-backed frameworks and help leaders apply them to their own situations so you can see real business impact.

Thinking over tactics

Successful leadership isn’t about memorizing tactics, it’s about making the right call for each situation. That means taking perspectives accurately, making sound decisions, choosing the right approach, and executing well. Together, we’ll take an analytical approach to sharpen critical thinking and judgment, so you and your leaders can lead through complexity with confidence.

Performance-Empathy Balance™

The corporate world needs a little more empathy, which does not have to come at the expense of performance, contrary to popular belief. My proprietary Performance-Empathy Balance™ framework holds leaders accountable while fostering trust, motivation, and sustainable success. I model this balance in my coaching and will teach your leaders to do the same for their teams.

Hi, I'm Connie!

I’m the founder of CG Leadership, creator of the Performance-Empathy Balance™ Model, and the face (and brain) of @conniegaocoaching.

For over a decade, I’ve led teams and delivered results in fast-paced industries, from luxury fashion to DTC startups. Most recently, I scaled active membership by 173% in four years with a higher LTV, while building a 14-person Marketing & Creative team from scratch. Under my leadership, 78% of my team was promoted, and my team retention was 3x the company average.

I pair this real-world success with an MBA from Columbia Business School and an Economics degree from Princeton University, giving you both the theoretical foundation and practical know-how to lead more effectively with confidence.

Learn my signature framework.

The Performance-Empathy Balance™ in Leadership course teaches leaders to drive results without burning out their teams. In just an hour, you’ll get a deep understanding of a practical, repeatable decision-making model for the moments that matter most.