Rich is a scientist when it comes to leadership, and has spent thousands of hours understanding the best practices that make teams and leaders tick. His data-backed best practices provide a veritable masterclass for any entrepreneur, leader, or investor.
Rich's analytical approach to leadership helped me pinpoint where I could focus my energy to reinforce my strengths, minimize the negative effects of my most challenging weaknesses, and build our team to create a well-rounded organization. Rich helped me navigate through a very turbulent time in the life of my company and my professional life, and emerge out the other end stronger.
Joe Davey
Co-Founder & CEO of Banzai.
I honestly could not have built my company without Richard Hagberg.
He has mentored me as a leader, given me a vocabulary to think about leadership, coached my entire leadership team, and helped us through major organizational inflection points as we've scaled this business past our IPO and hopefully towards a billion dollars in revenue. What I appreciate is that Rich has such a unique, data driven approach.
HCG's leadership development program is a complete system. So out of the 47 competencies on their 360 assessment of leadership characteristics, if there is anything you need to work on, poof they have a module to help you.
Tien Tzuo,
Founder and CEO, @ZuoraCEO
I've had the opportunity to watch Dr. Rich in action for the last six years. I have the deepest admiration and gratitude for the exceptional work he has carried out in guiding and mentoring a group of diverse Execs within our organization. As an HR professional deeply invested in the development and success of our team, I've had the privilege of witnessing the profound impact that Rich has had on our Execs and, consequently, our company as a whole.
Rich has taken the time to understand our industry and our place within it. Beyond his professional expertise, his exemplified unwavering integrity, authenticity and empathy in every interaction is a joy to watch. His genuine commitment to the personal and professional growth of each Exec has fostered a sense of trust and mutual respect that has served as the foundation for transformative change and improvement.
Our organization has utilized Rich's smarts in the hiring process for Execs, I simply would not hire an Exec into our organization, without Rich being involved. The insight he has lent has enabled us to make the MOST informed choices.
I cannot overstate the profound impact that Rich has had on our organization. His dedication, expertise and support have also instilled a sense of purpose and resilience that will undoubtedly propel us towards even greater success in the future.
Gill Godfrey
Chief People Officer at Storable
He can turn any good CEO or a good founder, especially if they're younger and moldable in terms of temperament, into a great one. And that's pretty phenomenal. That's pretty rare.
Rich provides something unique among coaches. Almost everybody else gives you a model or an archetype, if you will, like an ideal, and they can substantiate it with their own experience. And sometimes, not always, they can substantiate it with their own reasoning. Rich has not just the reasoning, which, of course, is the mark of a great coach, but he has the data set, so he knows what great looks like. This is extremely rare. And this is a huge multiplier to the quality of the decisions that you're going to make throughout the entirety of the journey of being a founder. As a founder this is a dream come true.
Rich has a certain gracefulness in handling different matters. He's coming at it with empathy, he's coming at it with care. He's trying to land the message just right in the way so that you can absorb it and digest it, which is great, very difficult, very challenging for anybody to do.
And he's fun, he has funny stories, he's got funny jokes. He's lived his life and he's enjoying his work and he wants you to enjoy your time, too. I's a fun time now, as a CEO. You are likely to bring your weight and your pressures and your burdens there, but if you don't let them overtake you. You can learn what you need to and have a good time while you're at it. And, you know, there's a lot to be said for that.
Rich did the hard work to come to real truths about how a very fuzzy portion of the world works, namely the world of business and commerce. He did that through his psychological statistics, his interviewing and working with thousands upon thousands of founders, his constant studying the area. This is the most unique factor. Everything else is exceptional and extremely valuable, but not necessarily unique. Right? You can find that constellation here and there, but never have I found such a concrete set of facts. For lack of a better term, about how things are likely, probabilistically going to work out for you as a business leader. That's unique. That's worth a lot.
A great leadership coach is a great multiplier of your growth and can make a transformative difference in your venture. Rich is that great coach.
Mitchell Amador
Chief Executive Officer at Immunefi
Rich's approach transformed leadership from an amorphous concept into achievable steps for self-improvement. He rendered it more measurable and objective. The strategies he implemented were initially seemingly minor yet impactful, such as introducing 360-degree feedback. Personally, this gave me a clear insight into the workings of merit-based versus loyalty-based organizations, illuminating various paths that other companies have pursued. I found this immensely helpful for my own journey.
I think one of the things I still use on a regular basis was his rubric of creating change in an organization or leading change in an organization.
Rich not only helped my own personal career immensely., but he's also improved the trajectory of our company through his leadership coaching. That's not just a clear benefit for anyone looking to improve themselves, but also their company. I think his coaching is invaluable.
Brian Kwon
President HMART
"Working with Rich was absolutely game changing for me. Not only does he have great instincts that are usually right, but he is also a walking encyclopedia to back up his ideas with hard facts. Most importantly, he’s an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur – and gets what today’s leaders are going through because he’s been there himself."
