Chief of Staff to the CEO

If you are the operator who can take a vague idea from a founder, decide what matters, challenge assumptions when needed, and drive the work through completion, this is a rare seat beside the CEO of a fast-moving consumer-products business.

You will serve as the CEO's right hand across the company's highest-priority initiatives. Your job is to create clarity, push decisions forward, hold senior owners accountable, and make sure important work gets finished without waiting for the CEO to chase it.

A founder-led consumer-products company is building the leadership cadence, operating systems, and execution discipline needed for its next stage of growth. The CEO currently carries too many strategic projects, decisions, follow-ups, and cross-functional handoffs personally.

Your mandate is to increase the CEO's leverage. You will help determine what matters most, independently drive two or three company-critical initiatives at a time, and ensure that decisions turn into action across retail, ecommerce, product development, marketing, operations, finance, recruiting, and partnerships.

This is not an executive assistant role and it is not a traditional project-management role. Success requires judgment, commercial thinking, executive courage, and the ability to move from an incomplete idea to a clear recommendation and completed result.

Long term, the company aims to scale a major business unit from approximately $10M toward $100M over five years. This role is designed for someone who wants to grow into broader strategic and executive responsibility by becoming an indispensable partner to the CEO.

• Translate the CEO's ideas, conversations, emails, and open loops into clear priorities, decisions, owners, deadlines, and expected results.
• Help the CEO distinguish what is urgent, what is important, what should move now, and what should be stopped or deferred.
• Prepare concise, decision-ready summaries that separate facts, assumptions, risks, options, and recommendations.
• Track decisions and make sure the right people understand what was decided and execute accordingly.
• Protect the CEO's attention by resolving issues independently when possible and escalating only what truly requires executive involvement.

• Independently lead two or three high-priority initiatives at a time from ambiguity through measurable result.
• Build the plan, identify dependencies, make practical recommendations, and drive the work without waiting for detailed instructions.
• Evaluate priorities through a commercial lens, including revenue opportunity, customer impact, cost, speed, risk, and organizational capacity.
• Coordinate initiatives across retail, ecommerce, marketing, product development, design, shipping, warehouse, operations, finance, legal, recruiting, agencies, and external partners.
• Identify stalled work early and drive resolution before delays become lost momentum or revenue.

• Create clear ownership and follow-through across senior leaders and functional teams.
• Push stakeholders for commitments, decisions, and completed work with professionalism and appropriate urgency.
• Challenge unclear thinking, weak ownership, or misaligned priorities, including respectfully challenging the CEO when necessary.
• Escalate missed commitments, unresolved dependencies, and meaningful business risks early.
• Influence without formal authority while maintaining trust, discretion, and strong working relationships.

• Build and maintain a clear operating view of company priorities, major projects, decisions, risks, and next actions.
• Establish a disciplined weekly cadence for the CEO and leadership team without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
• Create lightweight dashboards, decision logs, meeting structures, workflows, and SOPs that reduce dependence on memory and founder intervention.
• Use modern AI tools and automation to reduce manual follow-up, improve visibility, and accelerate execution.
• Identify recurring bottlenecks, unclear ownership, or unnecessary CEO involvement, then recommend and implement practical fixes.

• Routine inbox, Slack, calendar, travel, or personal-assistant responsibilities.
• Functional leadership of marketing, product, finance, operations, retail, or ecommerce teams.
• Being the catch-all owner for work that belongs to an accountable functional leader.
• A purely advisory role where recommendations are not carried through to execution.
• Meeting coordination without the judgment and authority to shape priorities and drive outcomes.

• You have built trust with the CEO and key internal stakeholders.
• The CEO's priorities, major decisions, and open initiatives are consolidated into a clear operating view.
• Owners, deadlines, dependencies, recurring meetings, and major blockers are mapped.

• The weekly CEO and leadership operating cadence is consistent and useful.
• You are independently driving the next steps on priority initiatives.
• Deadlines, commercial tradeoffs, and risks are visible before they become emergencies.
• Senior stakeholders know that commitments will be tracked and followed through.

• The CEO spends materially less time chasing updates and coordinating work.
• Two or three meaningful cross-functional initiatives are moving with clear ownership and momentum.
• You are bringing the CEO recommendations and solutions, not simply reporting problems.
• Recurring bottlenecks are being surfaced and solved.

• You are a trusted thought partner and execution partner to the CEO.
• The CEO is spending more time on strategy, leadership, talent, major relationships, product vision, and high-impact decisions.
• The organization is less dependent on the CEO for daily coordination and closure.
• You have earned broader responsibility through sound judgment, commercial impact, and reliable execution.

• You have experience in a Chief of Staff, strategy and operations, business operations, consulting, general management, strategic initiatives, or similarly cross-functional role.
• You have worked directly with a founder, CEO, business-unit leader, or senior executive and can show how you increased that person's effectiveness.
• You have independently owned ambiguous, commercially meaningful initiatives from idea through result.
• You can prioritize across competing demands and explain the business reasoning behind your recommendations.
• You are comfortable pushing senior stakeholders, asking difficult questions, and respectfully challenging an executive.
• You communicate clearly in writing and can turn complexity into concise decisions and next steps.
• You move quickly without becoming careless and bring structure without adding unnecessary process.
• You are fluent with collaborative documents, spreadsheets, dashboards, project-management platforms, and modern AI-enabled workflows.
• You want a long-term opportunity to grow into broader strategic and executive leadership.

• Experience in consumer products, retail, ecommerce, marketplaces, brand management, product launches, or operations.
• Experience in a founder-led or entrepreneurial company going through rapid growth or organizational change.
• Comfort working with retailers, agencies, factories, attorneys, accountants, recruiters, finance partners, and other external stakeholders.
• Evidence that you have grown quickly in prior roles and taken on responsibilities beyond your original job description.

In addition to your resume, include a short note describing:

• A vague request from a founder or senior executive that you turned into a meaningful business result.
• A time you pushed a senior stakeholder to honor a commitment or change course.
• A commercially important decision where you recommended what the business should do and why.