Rachel Formaro is CEO and Founder of Collabry and newly named president of NAWBO Iowa. She traces her journey from ad agencies in Toronto to corporate life in San Francisco, and finally to building a purposefully designed consultancy in Des Moines.
Rachel shares how moving to Iowa created the financial runway to start her company in her early 40s, why intention matters more the second (or third) time you become a founder, and what she learned from saying “yes” to the wrong clients, building a flexible collective model, and eventually hiring her husband into the business.
Formaro, has spent 12 years refining a business model built around a core five-person headquarters team supported by an expert collective of independent consultants. Born in England and raised in Canada, Formaro spent nearly 20 years in advertising and corporate financial services in Toronto and San Francisco before relocating to Des Moines. Launching her firm in her early 40s, Formaro brought a mature perspective to her venture. “I was so intentional about it, whereas I think in my earlier enterprises as an entrepreneur, it was a little bit more by the seat of my pants,” Formaro explained. Recently named president of NAWBO Iowa, she now leads advocacy efforts in a state ranked 47th nationwide for women-owned businesses. Formaro emphasizes that supporting these founders creates essential local momentum. “The data shows that when women business owners are successful, a lot of what they are building goes right back into their communities,” she noted.
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Scaling Through Delegation and Operational Autonomy
To transform Collabory from a founder-centric enterprise into an independent entity, Formaro systematically removed herself from day-to-day deliverables. She recognized early on that scaling required structural distance: “If you wanna be able to scale your business, have it exist when you’re gone, you can’t be billing on client projects.” After spending a year documenting standard operating procedures and shifting systems into tools like ClickUp, Formaro tested her company’s operational resilience by taking a full one-month sabbatical from July 15 to August 15. Her team managed ongoing client needs without operational bottlenecks and successfully secured new contracts during her absence. The successful experiment enabled Formaro to return with a clear focus on long-term strategy, business development, and policy advocacy.