Seems like everyone’s a chief of staff “expert” these days. I literally wrote the book on the chief of staff role. I’ve now interviewed hundreds of chiefs of staff across sizes and types of organizations, from Fortune 50 to startups, academics, and nonprofits, philanthropic organizations, private households, government, and even the military. All over the world, from Chile to Dubai to Mumbai to London to Silicon Valley. I’ve surveyed thousands. From CoS roles that were self-described as EA+ roles to true CEO proxies whose words and actions shifted stock markets. Nobody knows the chief of staff role better than me. I’ve hosted over 60 networking and development events for chiefs of staff with more than 300 unique participants and 40% repeat participants. 96% of participants report direct and immediate applicability of coaching, cohorts, and events to their work and a quantifiable ROI. 

As a Hudson-certified executive and leadership coach, I’m trained to help others achieve professional and personal change by co-creating experiments and iterating until you’ve met your goals. So, what good is all that knowledge? Isn’t your situation different than the chief of staff role I did, and even different than nearly every CoS I’ve spoken to? Yes, and that’s why I don’t just give you advice, although I can occasionally, but far more powerfully, I know what questions to ask to empower you to chart the course and get where you want to go.

Prior to my work in the chief of staff space, my career spanned operations management at Intellectual Ventures, program management at Advaiya, Inc., technical editing at Microsoft, and computer networking in the United States Marine Corps.

After facilitating well-run programs and operations in increasingly complex environments, I earned the thought partnership and counsel of senior leaders on issues affecting their organizations. As chief of staff at Intellectual Ventures, the pioneering invention company with $5B under management that grew from 200-800 employees in my time there, I served as thought partner, program manager, and communication manager for the President and Executive Leadership Team in setting the agenda for the company and achieving annual financial and operating goals.

My primary audience is well educated, experienced, influential, and on a career trajectory for senior executive roles if they haven’t already held those roles:  

• 40% support a Board Chair or Vice Chair, CEO, Nonprofit Executive Director, or Academic President
• 25% support a President & COO/other President or Regional/Divisional CEO
• 25% support a VP-level Department Head 
• 20% support an executive with a span of control of 1,000-4,999 employees
• 5% support an executive with a span of control of >10,000 employees
• 30%-40% are social media influencers in their own right (more than 500 LinkedIn connections and/or regularly publish original material on LinkedIn, blogs, or other outlets)

Many choose not to pursue the executive path in the end but opt to be great individual contributors, consultants, or coaches.