Chief of Staff

Blanco Niño is a fast-growing, award-winning premium Mexican food brand with a mission to accelerate the transition to regenerative agriculture. Founded in Ireland by Philip Martin, we currently produce a range of corn tortillas and tortilla chips using traditional cooking methods and premium ingredients. Our products are sold in 19 European and Middle Eastern markets, with a strong retail and foodservice presence across the UK and Ireland.

As we scale, we are building not only a globally respected food brand, but also a new kind of business — one rooted in craft, transparency, and ecological impact. We are now entering a transformative stage of growth:

• Expanding into new regions and product categories
• Building scalable people-oriented internal operating systems
• Developing a regenerative agriculture platform to support farmers and supply chains
• Deepening our brand and cultural impact in order to empower our mission objectives

Our team of 55+ is spread across Ireland, the UK and Portugal. While we operate with ambition and precision, we also hold community, humility, and sustainability at our core. Blanco Niño is more than a brand, we are building for the long-term and are rooted in quality, integrity, and impact.

Role Mission: To act as a force multiplier and strategic right hand to the CEO & Founder. To carry and operationalise the Founder’s vision. Aligning the leadership team, translating vision into clear priorities, and ensuring the effective execution of key initiatives. This role is central to building and nurturing a high-performing, integrated, values-driven organisation, enabling Blanco Niño to scale its people, systems, and culture in alignment with its mission to accelerate the transition to regenerative agriculture.

Prioritisation & Execution:

• Partner with the CEO and leadership team to define, sequence, and deliver the company’s most important strategic initiatives.
• Own the OKR process end-to-end — facilitating alignment on objectives, tracking progress, and ensuring company-wide execution.
• Establish and maintain the rhythm of the business — including the cadence and structure of leadership, departmental, and all-company meetings.
• Ensure every meeting has a clear purpose, the right participants, a focused agenda, and actionable follow-ups — reinforcing a culture of clarity and accountability.
• Track and report progress on key initiatives and cross-functional projects to ensure visibility and momentum.
• Manage the newly appointed business operations manager and empower them to deliver continuous optimisation of key business infrastructure, building out newly automated processes and systems.

Strategy & Insights:

• Act as a strategic advisor and thought partner to the CEO, supporting vision clarity and decision-making.
• Maintain and synthesise key market, industry, and competitive insights — proactively informing leadership discussions and company strategy.
• Plan, lead, and facilitate strategic working sessions — including quarterly prioritisation, cross-functional problem-solving workshops, and off-sites.
• Collaborate with functional leads to align team strategies with company-wide goals and uncover emerging opportunities.

Leadership Support & Communications:

• Serve as a key communication and coordination node across the leadership team and wider organisation.
• Write and design high-quality presentations, including strategy updates, investor decks, board reports, and internal all-hands materials.
• Manage CEO inboxes, triage inbound requests, and draft thoughtful, timely responses when appropriate.
• Actively support senior hiring — including defining roles, crafting job descriptions, designing case studies, and coordinating candidate journeys.
• Liaise between the CEO and the wider team to ensure clear, consistent information flow and priority alignment.
• Draft and cascade internal communications that reinforce culture, clarity, and momentum.

Company Secretarial & Board Coordination:

• Coordinate board meetings and governance touchpoints — including scheduling, agenda development, attendee preparation, materials distribution, minute-taking, and follow-up.
• Ensure timely and accurate record-keeping for key company decisions, documents, and compliance-related communications.
• Serve as a key point of contact for board members and shareholders on internal coordination matters.

People & Organizational Development:

• Partner with the CEO to evolve organisational structure, leadership capabilities, and team design in line with company growth.
• Work closely with department heads and recruiters to identify and attract high-calibre, values-aligned talent.
• Embed lightweight, scalable systems for performance management, feedback, communication, and career development.
• Monitor organisational health and team cohesion, identifying areas of strength and strain.
• Lead or support initiatives that reinforce culture, cross-team collaboration, and high standards.

Cross-Functional Leadership & Performance Monitoring:

• Support leadership team in aligning functional KPIs with company OKRs.
• Monitor cross-functional performance and unblock bottlenecks where silos or misalignments emerge.
• Serve as an internal force for accountability, cohesion, and execution at the intersections between teams.

Special Projects:

• Lead early-stage strategic or cross-functional projects — including new partnerships, business model innovations, or commercial initiatives.
• Step into functional leadership roles when needed (e.g., HR, Legal) to ensure continuity and delivery.
• Manage high-impact projects — quickly diagnosing blockers and driving structured improvements.
• Take ownership of one-off CEO-delegated initiatives requiring high trust, cross-functional coordination, and end-to-end delivery.

What Success Looks Like:

• The company has an operating system it can scale with.
• Core people systems are in place and functional KPI tracking and cross-company visibility are live.
• Leadership alignment and prioritisation are disciplined and trusted.
• Company-wide communication flows efficiently.
• Board coordination is seamless and professional.
• The CEO is strategically unblocked and supported.
• The company has moved from founder-led to founder-supported operations.

Ideal Candidate Profile:

• You are a highly capable, trusted operator with a bias for clarity, structure, and momentum.
• You move fluidly between strategy and execution — just as comfortable mapping company-wide OKRs as you are coordinating a board meeting, designing an onboarding process, or leading a cross-functional special project.
• You’re not looking for a passive role. You want to build — the systems, rhythms, and frameworks that enable a mission-driven business to scale with integrity and impact.
• You thrive in environments where there’s more to do than is currently structured — and you instinctively bring order, accountability, and progress.
• You are an outstanding communicator and a deeply trusted partner.
• You know how to support and challenge a CEO.
• You keep a calm head under pressure, maintain strong discretion, and bring others along with clarity and conviction.
• You are people-oriented, but systems-minded.
• You care about culture, performance, and alignment — and understand that trust and structure are not opposites, but allies.
• You’re excited by Blanco Niño’s mission to accelerate the transition to regenerative agriculture and are motivated by the opportunity to help build something enduring, impactful, and beautiful from the inside out.

You May Have:

• 6–10+ years of experience in high-growth or fast-scaling environments (startups, scale-ups, consulting, or operational strategy roles).
• Experience working directly with founders, CEOs, or executive teams.
• A background in organisational development, strategic operations, or generalist leadership roles (e.g. Business Manager, Strategy Lead, or former CoS).
• Experience building internal systems: OKRs, performance management, onboarding, meeting cadences, or KPI dashboards.
• Exposure to people strategy or HR-adjacent roles — comfortable supporting hiring, onboarding, culture, and org design.
• Bonus: Experience in food/FMCG, mission-led businesses, regenerative systems or international scaling.

You Likely Are:

• Strategic & Systems-Oriented — You see the whole, zoom into the parts, and know how to turn vision into executable frameworks.
• High-Trust & Discreet — You operate behind the scenes with integrity, sensitivity, and professionalism.
• People-Centric & Culture-Aware — You’re thoughtful about how people experience structure, communication, and change.
• Clear & Confident Communicator — You write well, speak clearly, and bring structure to ambiguity.
• Builder, Not Just an Optimiser — You’re excited to lay the foundations — not just refine what’s already in place.
• Adaptable & Curious — You’re flexible, pragmatic, and constantly learning. You thrive in complexity and change.
• Mission-Aligned — You care deeply about meaningful work, regenerative systems, and long-term thinking.