Business builder.
Pattern identifier.
ABOUT KATHLEEN JOHNSON
Kathleen Johnson has owned and operated multiple service and trades businesses - including one that hit six figures in the first 12 months, and one that went bankrupt from a product recall. She knows what breaks at scale because she's broken it herself.
While with Small Business Development Center as an advisor, she kept seeing the same structural issue: capable founders stuck being the ceiling because they'd never defined CEO vs. Owner responsibilities.
She built The StoneCold CEO Build™ to fix it.
ENTREPRENEUR · STRATEGIST · ADVISOR · FACILITATOR
The same thing
kept breaking.
Kathleen worked 1:1 with founders and business owners across industries and revenue stages while she was with SBDC. The presenting problems were different - team issues, revenue plateaus, operational chaos, but the structural issue was always the same.
Founders were doing Owner work when they needed to be doing CEO work. Capable people trapped in operational bottlenecks because they'd never built decision infrastructure or defined what was theirs to own vs. what needed to be delegated.
The business had outgrown the structure. And no amount of effort was going to fix a structure problem.
— Decisions piling up
Everything running through the founder because there was no clear decision-making framework or authority structure.
— Constant firefighting
Spending 15-20 hours a week on tactical work that should have been delegated months ago.
— Leadership misalignment
Teams operating without shared clarity on priorities, ownership, or execution rhythm.
— Growth stalling
Revenue plateaus because the founder became the constraint - not the catalyst.
Blunt. Strategic.
No copouts.
— She's a certified coach and resilience trainer - but she doesn't operate like one. She advises because she knows the structure, not because she read about it.
— She's direct. No hand-holding. No soft coaching language. If you want someone to validate your excuses, she's not your advisor.
— She works with all personalities - as long as you leave your ego at the door and actually want to achieve your goals.
— She operates solo by design. This work requires depth and strategic restraint. She protects her IP, works with a limited number of clients, and doesn't scale for scale's sake.
— Edge and empathy. You'll get both - but the edge comes first.
Stop being
the ceiling.
If you're a founder doing $500K–$5M in revenue and you're ready to transition from operator to strategic CEO - with clear role definition, decision infrastructure, and leadership structure - start the conversation.