Applications Open:

Chief of Staff

Location: San Francisco Bay Area | Hybrid
Travel: Occasional, as needed

About the Role

Our client is seeking an experienced, highly capable Chief of Staff to serve as a strategic and operational partner to the CEO.

The primary purpose of this role is to protect and expand the CEO’s capacity for external, partnership, board, and other high-value strategic work by taking ownership of coordination, preparation, prioritization, and cross-functional operational needs.

This is a highly visible role that sits at the intersection of leadership, operations, partnerships, board activities, and organizational effectiveness. The Chief of Staff will help create the connective tissue across a growing organization—ensuring information flows effectively, priorities remain visible, leaders stay aligned, and important initiatives move forward.

This is not a people-management role and currently has no direct reports. Success will come through influence, judgment, relationships, organization, and the ability to make progress across functions without relying on formal authority.

Key Responsibilities

CEO Partnership & Time Management

Serve as a trusted partner to the CEO by proactively protecting the CEO’s time and attention.

Maintain visibility across the CEO’s calendar, priorities, external commitments, and organizational responsibilities. Anticipate conflicts, pressure points, and competing demands before they arise and work proactively to resolve them.

Help determine which opportunities and conversations warrant travel, onsite participation, direct CEO involvement, or a lighter-touch approach.

Represent the CEO’s perspective and presence internally when appropriate, while ensuring the CEO remains focused on the organization’s highest-value strategic priorities.

External Partnerships & Stakeholder Engagement

Support and strengthen the organization’s external and partnership activities.

Own the preparation required for important external conversations, including:

• Background research and context
• Briefing materials
• Presentations and decks
• Meeting preparation
• Follow-up and action tracking

Maintain standing external-facing materials and ensure they remain accurate and current.

Create a centralized process for tracking important external conversations, relationships, meeting notes, commitments, and next steps.

Coordinate appropriate touchpoints with outside organizations, partners, and other key stakeholders.

Board Support & Governance

Own the operational preparation and coordination for Board activities.

Responsibilities may include:

• Developing a consistent Board meeting template and process
• Coordinating Board meeting materials
• Gathering information from functional and departmental leaders
• Preparing presentations and briefing materials
• Managing meeting logistics
• Tracking follow-up items and decisions
• Serving as a point of contact for operational Board questions

Support broader Board strategy as needed, including financial planning, Board expansion, candidate research, and other informational needs associated with Board searches or governance initiatives.

Plan and coordinate future Board offsites from concept through execution.

Cross-Functional Coordination

Create stronger communication and coordination across departments and functional areas.

Establish and manage a senior staff forum on an agreed-upon cadence to improve alignment, information sharing, and decision-making.

Support company-wide town halls by developing agendas for CEO approval, coordinating content, gathering departmental updates, and sourcing external speakers when appropriate.

Develop processes and communication channels that allow important information and issues to surface across the organization without requiring everything to flow directly through the CEO.

Senior Leadership Partnership

Develop strong working relationships with senior staff throughout the organization.

Meet individually with senior leaders on a regular cadence to understand:

• Strategic priorities
• Current pressures and challenges
• Cross-functional needs
• Organizational risks
• Areas where additional coordination or support may be helpful

Use these relationships to identify opportunities to remove roadblocks, improve alignment, and strengthen organizational effectiveness.

Organizational Operations

Partner closely with operations and other internal functions to address organizational needs and improve the employee experience.

Advocate for and coordinate team-related matters when appropriate, including areas such as:

• Facilities
• Recruiting vendors
• Internal processes
• Organizational infrastructure
• Cross-functional operational needs

Identify gaps in processes and help develop scalable procedures as the organization grows.

New-Hire & Onboarding Support

Support the onboarding infrastructure for new hires, particularly senior or strategic recruits.

Develop or coordinate introductory materials, organizational resources, and onboarding information that complement the company-wide employee handbook.

Help ensure new employees understand the organization's mission, structure, priorities, and ways of working.

Organizational Prioritization

Own the operational execution of the organization's twice-yearly prioritization process.

Each cycle, help leadership and departments establish the organization's most important priorities for the next six months and create mechanisms for measuring progress against those commitments.

Run the process from beginning to end, including:

• Planning and coordination
• Gathering departmental priorities
• Facilitating alignment
• Documenting commitments
• Tracking progress
• Coordinating follow-up
• Supporting applicable HR or compliance requirements

Offsites & Organizational Events

Own company-wide offsites from planning through execution.

Partner with leadership to establish objectives, agendas, logistics, content, speakers, and follow-up.

Provide planning and coordination support for departmental offsites when appropriate.

Recruiting & Organizational Growth

Support recruiting efforts as the organization continues to grow.

Partner with leadership and recruiting stakeholders where appropriate to improve hiring processes, coordinate strategic searches, and identify areas where recruiting processes may be breaking down.

Help evaluate and improve recruiting workflows, candidate experiences, vendor relationships, and internal coordination.

Information & Organizational Routing

Serve as a trusted point of coordination for colleagues who need help navigating organizational questions, priorities, or cross-functional needs.

Help ensure important information reaches the right people and that issues do not become unnecessarily concentrated with the CEO.

Maintain appropriate visibility into foundation-level financial, legal, and organizational matters that leadership needs to remain informed about.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required.
• 10+ years of experience in operations, strategy, organizational leadership, or similarly complex roles with progressively increasing responsibility.
• Previous experience serving in a Chief of Staff role.
• Demonstrated experience partnering directly with senior executives.
• Strong project and program management capabilities.
• Proven ability to coordinate complex initiatives across multiple departments and stakeholders.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong research, synthesis, and presentation-development skills.
• High level of discretion and sound judgment when handling confidential or sensitive matters.
• Comfortable working in a growing organization where processes may still need to be created or refined.
• Ability to operate effectively without formal authority or direct reports.
• Comfortable using Google Workspace, Slack, and AI-enabled tools to improve productivity and effectiveness.
• Must be located in the San Francisco Bay Area and able to work within a hybrid environment.
• Ability to travel occasionally and sometimes with limited advance notice.

A background in science or experience working within a scientific or research-oriented organization is a plus but is not required.

Who Will Thrive in This Role

The successful Chief of Staff will be intellectually curious, highly organized, mission-driven, and comfortable operating in an evolving environment.

You will thrive here if you:

• Have exceptional operational judgment.
• Are comfortable navigating ambiguity.
• Naturally anticipate needs before they become problems.
• Enjoy learning about unfamiliar subjects and asking thoughtful questions.
• Can quickly synthesize complex information and identify what matters most.
• Know when to step in, when to ask questions, and when to let others lead.
• Are comfortable doing both high-level strategic work and the detailed execution required to make it successful.
• Build trust easily across different teams and levels of an organization.
• Look for ways to solve problems rather than waiting for them to be assigned.
• Can influence and coordinate effectively without relying on positional authority.
• Believe strongly in the organization's mission and can help reinforce that mission across departments.

Above all, this role requires someone who sees around corners, creates structure where it is needed, and makes the people around them—including the CEO—more effective.