Chief of Staff

Location: Thursley, Surrey (Office Based, 5 days per week)

Reporting line: Operations Director

The Role: As Chief of Staff to the CEO, you will operate as the CEO’s right hand—managing his time, priorities, and presence, while also helping shape and drive the company’s strategic agenda. You’ll be in the room, at the table, and behind the scenes—ensuring that what matters most gets the attention it needs. You will be a trusted advisor, business partner, and proactive gatekeeper—helping drive the business forward by ensuring that priorities are clear, communications are aligned, and execution is seamless. This is a high-trust, high-impact role designed for someone who thrives in dynamic environments, can deeply understand complex business operations, and enjoys connecting strategic thinking with operational execution. You’ll need to be highly organised, deeply intuitive, business-savvy, and comfortable in both executive and operational spaces. Your work will enable the CEO to stay focused, effective, and aligned with what matters.

Key Responsibilities

• Executive Partnership
  • Work side-by-side with the CEO in meetings, calls, and day-to-day operations; act as a proxy where appropriate.
  • Understand and anticipate the CEO’s needs and priorities, often before they are articulated.
  • Serve as the “eyes and ears” of the CEO across the business—gathering insights, surfacing issues, and connecting dots between teams and initiatives.
  • Act as a gatekeeper—managing access to the CEO’s time, information, and focus with judgment and discretion.
  • Become fully embedded in the business, showing deep understanding of strategic priorities, and high commercial awareness.
• Business Insight & Communication
  • Develop a deep understanding of the business—our services, business model, people, clients, and priorities.
  • Help translate CEO direction into action across teams and functions.
  • Analyse issues, prepare briefing documents, and support strategic decision-making with clear, concise inputs.
  • Identify gaps or bottlenecks and work cross-functionally to solve problems and improve workflows.
• Communication Management
  • Accompany the CEO to key internal and external meetings as required; capture action items, manage follow-ups, and ensure outcomes are executed.
  • Prepare the CEO for meetings both internally and externally with relevant context and briefings, proactively gathering information as required.
  • Support internal communication efforts, including CEO updates and messaging to the wider business.
• Operations & Special Projects
  • Lead or support cross-functional, high-priority projects and ensure they stay on track.
  • Monitor key strategic initiatives and ensure follow-through and accountability.
  • Support Board relations, including preparing reports, agendas, and coordinating inputs from others.
  • Identify opportunities to streamline processes, improve decision-making, and enhance internal efficiency.
• Executive Support
  • Manage the CEO’s calendar with precision and intention—ensuring time is aligned with key priorities.
  • Coordinate internal and external meetings, prepare agendas, ensure follow-ups, and maintain momentum on outcomes.
  • Organise complex travel arrangements and logistics for the CEO’s personal and business requirements.
  • Proactively manage the CEO’s inbox—triaging messages, responding or resolving where appropriate, and establishing a clear, efficient process for escalating only what truly requires the CEO’s input—ensuring timely, effective handling of all communications.
  • Be available on-call 24/7 for urgent matters, particularly when the CEO is travelling, ensuring swift support and problem-solving in time-sensitive or high-stakes situations.
  • Organising and managing corporate events and the CEO’s personal activities.

What We’re Looking For

• 5+ years of experience in management consulting, corporate strategy, business operations, or executive leadership support, preferably within engineering, professional services or a start-up environment.
• A high degree of business acumen and strategic thinking, paired with exceptional organisational and execution skills and the ability to quickly grasp complex issues across technical and operational domains.
• Ability to work at pace with senior stakeholders, distil complexity, and move fluidly between strategic and tactical.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills—trusted by CEO and leadership and respected by teams.
• Strong discretion, integrity, and ability to handle sensitive/confidential information.
• Highly proactive, adaptable, and resourceful—with strong intuition, judgment and confidentiality and a natural curiosity to understand how everything connects.
• Someone who thrives on being one step ahead, keeping things moving, and making the CEO more effective every day.