Chief of Staff
The CEO's operational counterpart. Three times over, 6.2 years.
What the role actually is
A Chief of Staff is not a deputy and not an assistant. The job is to hold the operating system of the executive office. What the leadership team is working on, whether it's sequenced correctly, whether it's actually moving, and what the board needs to know.
I did it for 3.8 years at Tata Communications, more than twice the average tenure for the role, for the CEO of a $4B business with 14,000 employees. I did it at Circles.Life in the Founder's Office. And I did it for 1.8 years at Digital Edge for the CEO of a 600-person platform across eight markets.
What I do in the role
Corporate planning. At Tata I ran the annual process from board-level strategy through to individual KPIs for 14,000 people, including cascade communications, town halls, train-the-trainer and SuccessFactors tracking. At Digital Edge I developed an alternative to the finance-led budget cycle with a combined top-down and bottoms-up planning process.
Range under pressure. At Circles.Life, I rolled out the company's first Direction Setting process for quarterly and annual planning, cutting the cycle from 45 days to 30 and doubling the B2C review cadence — then ran the B2C business myself as interim head for six months, growing revenue over 5% in a single quarter and delivering Singapore's 5G consumer launch through a six-week war room.
Board reporting. I redesigned quarterly board-facing GTM reporting at Digital Edge, turning fragmented decks into structured reviews covering pipeline health, gap analysis and forward plan. The hard part is not assembling the pack. It's making sure what's in it is true, including the parts nobody wants to present.
Leadership cadence. At Tata I coordinated the global Leadership Forum, a body of 150 AVPs, VPs and EVPs, designing the plenary events, running post-meeting action trackers, and making sure leadership commitments turned into departmental KPIs.
Cross-functional delivery. 152 initiatives overseen from 2016, 88% closed by 2019, across a period in which net revenue margin improved from 45% to 58%.
Large-format delivery. DEKO 2026. 150 leaders, seven markets, three days in Bangkok, on time and inside a $200K budget, ten weeks from green-light.
What you should expect from me
Direct reporting on what's actually happening. I'll tell you a plan isn't working before it becomes obvious in the numbers. I'd rather have that conversation early than manage the presentation of it later.
Where this fits
CEOs of organizations between roughly 200 and 15,000 people. Most useful post-investment, during a scale phase, or through a leadership transition. I supported the Interim Managing Committee at Tata through the CEO's departure to Vodafone, so I've done that one too.
Related Service: See how this works as an engagement » Chief of Staff, Embedded.