Chief of Staff

A Chief of Staff (CoS) is a professional who supports an executive’s priorities and coordinates their implementation across departments. They gather relevant information, prepare recommendations and track agreed actions. The role is particularly useful when important matters do not fall under a single manager’s responsibility.

In organisations where the Chief of Staff reports to the CEO, they work closely with the leadership team and department heads. They may prepare leadership meetings, lead a cross-functional project or gather the information needed by the board of directors. The extent of these responsibilities depends on the assignments entrusted to them and their autonomy. Preparing for a decision, coordinating its implementation and making decisions on behalf of the executive are different responsibilities.

The title therefore does not automatically give them authority over directors. Any delegation of decision-making or representative authority must be explicit and understood by those concerned. The role can operate without direct reports. In that case, cooperation depends on a clear mandate and the ability to bring together managers who retain their own obligations.

Chief of Staff, operations leadership and executive assistance: who does what?

• The Chief of Staff supports the executive’s priorities and takes responsibility for cross-functional assignments agreed with them.
• The COO provides a point of comparison when the need is for operations leadership. Influitive’s account distinguishes this need from support for the executive, without making the titles universally interchangeable.
• Executive assistance requires an explicit division of tasks. GitLab excludes diary management from the CoS role, whereas Xsolla includes it. It is therefore necessary to specify who manages the diary, prepares materials and tracks projects, rather than infer this division from job titles.

The challenge is to connect leadership decisions with action in the departments concerned. A meeting may establish a clear direction without specifying who needs to act, what information is missing or which issue still needs a decision. The Chief of Staff can organise this transition to implementation by clarifying responsibilities and tracking progress.

Defining the role deserves as much attention as choosing the candidate. Assigning cross-functional projects to someone without explaining their role to the managers concerned risks creating competing demands. Conversely, implicitly assigning them every matter the executive cannot address makes their priorities difficult to understand. To avoid these situations, define the assignments entrusted to them, the decisions reserved for the executive and how difficulties should be escalated.

Information quality is another concern. A useful briefing for the leadership team distinguishes what is established, what remains uncertain and what requires a decision. Producing more materials does not, on its own, make a problem clearer. The role requires selecting relevant economic and operational information, then explaining what conclusions it supports.

Fictional example: several departments need to prepare a priority initiative, but each is waiting for information from another. The Chief of Staff can bring the managers together, clarify the actions required and escalate the disagreement blocking their work to the executive. They must not imply that they can resolve that disagreement if the decision exceeds their delegated authority.

Finally, access to sensitive information requires discretion. To establish how people will work together, specify which information may be shared, with whom and for what purpose. The aim is to enable cooperation without blurring responsibilities or unnecessarily exposing confidential discussions.

• Prepare leadership meetings by gathering the information needed for decisions.
• Turn decisions into actions assigned to the managers concerned.
• Track progress on actions and escalate difficulties that require a decision.
• Lead priority projects involving several departments, within the agreed mandate.
• Analyse economic and operational data to formulate recommendations for the executive.
• Summarise information from departments to prepare board materials, where this responsibility falls within the role.
• Represent the executive in discussions covered by an explicit delegation of authority.

Strategy consulting, operational responsibilities and leading cross-functional projects can prepare someone for a Chief of Staff role. McKinsey’s international study highlights backgrounds in strategy and operations, without defining a single prerequisite for recruitment in France.

Transferable capabilities include analysing an economic or operational problem, formulating a recommendation for the leadership team and coordinating the actions that follow. They also include tracking the implementation of a decision. Experience limited to preparing presentations therefore does not necessarily cover all these responsibilities.

Academic expectations vary between employers. GitLab mentions a master’s degree in engineering or business, or equivalent experience. Lindblad requires a bachelor’s degree and states a preference for an MBA. These examples do not point to a single required qualification. The capabilities relevant to the role remain analysis, synthesis, understanding the organisation’s activities and coordination.

Junior status must also be considered in relation to the mandate. Supporting the preparation of leadership or board meetings or tracking projects does not require the same autonomy as representing the executive extensively. Work that can be completed independently, recommendations to discuss and decisions requiring approval correspond to different degrees of autonomy. The job title alone does not establish that someone has already developed decision-making ability.

GetPro uses a framework that distinguishes criteria which can be checked through a candidate’s career history from those to explore further in an interview. Each criterion is linked to an assessment method. Open questions and concrete examples help examine skills. Reference checks complement these observations to clarify strengths and areas requiring attention.

The following five stages propose an application of this framework to the Chief of Staff role. Adapt these criteria, questions and fictional case to the responsibilities you intend to assign.

1. Define the criteria from the role

Select the capabilities needed for the initial assignments: analysis, executive briefings, cross-functional coordination, judgement and discretion. Specify the expected degree of autonomy for each criterion. Distinguish the decisions the candidate will need to help prepare for from those they will be able to make.

Involve the executive in defining these expectations and ask the managers concerned to clarify how they will interact with the role. If you lack the expertise to assess an operational analysis, involve a manager who can examine the reasoning. Agree on the criteria before the interviews so that candidates can be compared against the same expectations.

2. Reconstruct a past achievement

Ask the candidate to describe a project involving several departments. Have them explain the initial problem, each person’s responsibilities, the information available and which decisions they personally helped prepare for or made.

Where possible, examine an anonymised document: a recommendation note, a leadership presentation or an action tracker. Ask what decisions the document enabled, then how implementation was tracked. Also accept a reconstructed example that protects confidential information.

A clear distinction between the candidate’s work and that of other managers is a positive sign. Probe answers that attribute all the success to the candidate without describing the decisions, difficulties or departments’ contributions.

3. Propose a case similar to the assignments involved

Fictional example: give the candidate information about a priority project in which several departments must each deliver part of the work. Introduce a missing piece of information and a disagreement over the allocation of actions.

Ask for a short note to the executive covering the problem to solve, missing information, a recommendation and the decision required. Then ask the candidate to prepare an action tracker specifying who is responsible and which points need clarification.

Assess the coherence of the reasoning and the readability of the document. Observe whether the candidate distinguishes an assumption from a fact. Ask them to explain what they can move forward and what requires the executive’s agreement. A persuasive presentation must remain consistent with the information actually available.

4. Examine cooperation and disagreement

Ask how the candidate secured the cooperation of a manager over whom they had no authority. Have them explain the expectations discussed and the difficulties encountered. Avoid confusing interpersonal ease with the ability to reach a precise agreement on actions.

Invite them to describe a professional disagreement with an executive, while protecting sensitive information. Examine how they presented their reasoning and took the final decision into account. Be alert to unnecessary disclosure of confidential details.

If the role includes a team, examine the management responsibilities the candidate has actually held separately. Do not infer this experience from cross-functional project coordination alone.

5. Compare observations with references

With the candidate’s consent, speak to people who have worked with them on the responsibilities being assessed. Ask for specific situations concerning the quality of briefings, follow-through on commitments and cooperation between departments.

Compare this feedback with the examples presented in the interview. Clarify discrepancies before drawing conclusions. Finish with an assessment against each criterion: demonstrated ability, observed limitation and support needed. This will give you concrete evidence to decide whether the candidate’s autonomy matches the role.