The chief of staff is an executive position that supports other higher-level executives in their roles. To become a chief of staff, you need excellent interpersonal skills and several years of executive-level experience in corporate environments. The position of chief of staff is relatively new to the private sector, and qualifications for the position vary from company to company. However, many companies prefer job applicants with a master's degree in business administration (MBA) or a related field.
Working well as part of a team will help you succeed in your career as chief of staff, especially since you'll have to collaborate with other executives from all departments to implement the CEO's vision. As a chief of staff (CoS), you'll experience the professional life of a busy executive and the daily operations and initiatives he oversees. Given the variety of your responsibilities and the versatility you have, it can be difficult to define the right position after completing your CoS period. However, you should be able to use your long list of responsibilities, skills, experience, and achievements to position yourself for several subsequent positions.
The good news is that you have options. As chief of staff, you'll work with and report directly to the CEO, conveying messages and ideas from other senior managers to improve the company's internal functions and processes. With this example of a description of the chief of staff position, you can get a good idea of what employers are looking for when hiring for this position. In that position, Carol heads the CEO's office and is responsible for ensuring the execution of his agenda, a job that includes managing time, the flow of information to and from the CEO, and making sure that the CEO is always prepared and rarely surprised.
Remember that every employer is different and each of them will have unique qualifications when you are hired for a chief of staff position. More sophisticated chiefs of staff also help CEOs analyze and establish policies and ensure that they are implemented. Two final factors will determine whether adding an executive director to the executive director's office will improve things. During the 25 years I spent working at a consulting and software company, a dozen of them as president and CEO, I had a chief of staff.
In my current position, I have seen people hold the positions of vice president (vice president) or chief operating officer (COO), depending on their level of experience. Take, for example, an executive I'll call Joe, who was promoted from director of sales and marketing to president of a medium-sized company that had just been acquired, which meant that Joe was now dependent on a president and CEO in a remote office, which added political complexity to the position. Greg works closely with the directors of business development and R&D on alliances and acquisition projects, and with the director of human resources in the search for scientific talent. The executive assistant to the executive director must understand the role of the team manager, since he deals with the first line of information flow and will continue to perform the routine tasks that support the activities of the chief of staff.
He joined a large life sciences company as chief of staff after obtaining a doctorate and a master's degree in Business Administration in the best programs and, later, working for a strategic consulting company, of which his current boss was a client. My observations on the evolution of this position in business organizations suggest that it involves three levels of responsibility.
