Cohagen Wilkinson

I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, and started my first business when I was fifteen.

Bluefog Studios was an audio and video production company — clients, contracts, revenue, taxes. I was designing and installing production systems, booking equipment, and negotiating rates through high school. By the time I left for college, I'd been running it for a few years.

That company got me into SMU Cox School of Business on scholarship. And it taught me something I've carried into every role since: building something that works isn't that complicated. Building the people and systems to sustain it — that's the harder problem.

My uncle's company was the first call. What started as one engagement turned into five years of fractional COO work — inside companies ranging from single-person startups to organizations with nine-figure revenues. I helped a startup complete a $75M IPO within ninety days. I turned a nonprofit losing tens of thousands a month into a profitable operation in three months. I designed org structures, built leadership teams, and put in the operational infrastructure that lets businesses grow without falling apart.

Along the way, I met Philip Zach, co-founded Nightfox Audio, and together we built STACKS, putting some skin in the game alongside the founders I was advising.

What I kept seeing, across all of it, was the same pattern: the founder was still running the business. And as long as that was true, the business had a ceiling.

The work that moved the needle — consistently, across every industry — was helping founders build the team and the systems to lead alongside them. Not just hand off tasks. Actually share leadership.

I wanted to do that work on purpose, with more people, more intentionally. That led me to coaching.