FAQ

A Chief of Staff sits directly next to the CEO or executive team and owns the operating system that turns their intent into execution. In practice this means running the planning and review cadence, structuring ambiguous business problems into decision-ready options, coordinating cross-functional work that has no natural owner, and making sure the things the executive team agreed to actually happen. It is not a support role in the administrative sense. It is a leadership role focused on organizational effectiveness.

A COO typically owns a function, such as operations or revenue, with direct line authority over teams and P&L. A Chief of Staff usually has no direct reports and no P&L, and works across every function through influence, structure, and proximity to the executive rather than authority. An Executive Assistant manages an executive's calendar, logistics, and administrative workflow. A Chief of Staff operates one level up: shaping strategy, running governance, and closing the gap between what leadership decides and what the organization does. The three roles can coexist on the same team without overlapping.

Strategy & Operations and Chief of Staff draw on the same core skills — structuring ambiguity, cross-functional execution — but they show up differently in practice. Chief of Staff work sits specifically next to one executive, running the operating rhythm of an office that already exists. Strategy & Operations, in Olivier's experience, has more often meant building that operating system from scratch — a new venture, a new product portfolio, a new entity — before there's an existing office to plug into. He's spent roughly three years doing the latter, entirely separate from his Chief of Staff tenure.

GTM (go-to-market) Operations focuses on the full architecture of the revenue engine: how the market is segmented and planned for, how marketing and sales hand off to each other, pipeline definitions and hygiene, CRM structure and attribution, forecast accuracy, and deal desk and pricing mechanics. It's Strategy & Operations applied specifically to the commercial function.

Strategy & Operations is where he's built the plan and the operating system from a blank page — a new consultancy, a new venture, a new product portfolio. GTM & Growth is where he's built and run the commercial engine specifically — demand generation, sales process, CRM and pricing — including carrying a sales number himself. Chief of Staff sits above both, next to one executive, running the operating rhythm of an office that already exists. The three overlap in skill set and diverge in scope.

Usually one of a few triggers: the executive team is spending too much time on coordination and not enough on decisions, strategic initiatives keep stalling between functions because no one owns the handoffs, the planning and review cadence is inconsistent or missing entirely, or the company has scaled past the point where the founder or CEO can personally hold the operating system together in their head. A good Chief of Staff removes that bottleneck.

Most commonly around a scaling inflection point — a Series B or C raise, a headcount jump past 100-200 people, a new market entry, or a leadership transition — when the informal coordination that worked at a smaller scale starts breaking down. The signal is rarely the org chart. It's usually the CEO noticing they're the only person holding the full picture together.

Structured thinking under ambiguity, the judgment to know which problems need a framework and which need a phone call, enough fluency across strategy, finance, operations, and GTM to hold a credible conversation with any functional leader, and the discretion to operate close to sensitive information without becoming a bottleneck or a political actor. Technical skill matters less than judgment and trust.

Five connected pieces: how the market is segmented and planned for, the sales process that turns a lead into a closed deal, the handoff between marketing and sales, the CRM structure the data actually lives in, and the pricing and reporting layer that tells you whether any of it is working. He's built and rebuilt this system at Digital Edge, and years earlier restructured it with McKinsey for Tata's Americas enterprise business.

MEDDPICC is a qualification framework for enterprise sales — Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Paper Process, Identify Pain, Champion, Competition — used to score how real an opportunity actually is. Olivier is embedding it into a new Salesforce implementation at Digital Edge, so pipeline quality can be graded consistently by account, rep, and region rather than relying on a rep's own optimism.

He designs the scoring logic, taxonomy, and reporting structure inside Salesforce — most recently rebuilding Digital Edge's lead-source taxonomy for full-funnel attribution and embedding MEDDPICC scoring into a new implementation. He works closely with the platform and with the teams administering it day to day; if a role specifically needs a certified Salesforce administrator rather than the person designing what the system should do, that's worth clarifying directly.

The same structure behind the GTM & Revenue Operations Diagnostic service: audit stage definitions and data hygiene, introduce a stale-deal rule so dead opportunities stop inflating the number, check forecast accuracy against what's actually closed, then review pricing and deal desk mechanics. The output is a prioritized fix list, not just a diagnosis of what's wrong.

At Digital Edge, largely from scratch — internally, it's the company's first systematic commercial growth engine: SEO rebuild, content and backlink strategy, targeted ICP advertising, global directory consolidation, and an AI SDR pilot for greenfield outreach. This work is current and ongoing, not a closed case study with final numbers yet — happy to speak to where it stands on a call.

Both, deliberately — the marketing-to-sales handoff is one of the specific gaps his GTM work targets. The demand generation program at Digital Edge (SEO, content, ICP advertising) sits on the marketing side; the MEDDPICC scoring and pipeline discipline sit on the sales side. The point of the role is making sure the two actually connect.

Yes — at Digital Edge, target verticals, accounts, personas and use cases are being rebuilt market by market as part of the GTM planning work, alongside targeted ICP advertising as part of the demand generation program.

At Tata Communications, as Account Director for New Ventures, he built a $40M ACV pipeline in under twelve months across logistics, aviation, energy and smart city sectors, closed $1.8M including a $1M win, and passed 100% of quota by month ten.

Yes — at Tata, he activated joint go-to-market partnerships with Cisco, Microsoft, NetFoundry and Zscaler to open additional demand channels alongside his own direct pipeline.

From a 30-person sales team at Digital Edge, where Sales Navigator was deployed org-wide, up to Tata's Americas enterprise sales division, where he worked as an internal strategy and operations partner on segmentation and GTM restructuring rather than as the team's direct line manager.

Yes — GTM plans across eight APAC markets at Digital Edge, and market segmentation and annual operating plans spanning APAC, EMEA and the Americas for Tata's Mobility and IoT portfolio.

A VP of Sales or CRO typically owns a sales organization directly — quota, headcount, and a large team reporting to them. Olivier's GTM & Growth work has been more architectural: designing the system, the scoring, the segmentation and the reporting a sales org runs on, plus a period of carrying a number himself in a smaller, more surgical capacity (Tata's New Ventures team, not a large direct sales org). If a role specifically needs someone who has run a large sales team as the direct line manager, that's a distinction worth raising on a call.

Concretely: structuring a legal entity, writing the business plan and operating budget, defining the GTM approach, and building the governance or advisory structure around it — before there's an existing team or process to inherit. He's done this at Elev8te, a consultancy built from day zero, and at XD Academy, structuring a new venture out of a management buyout.

At XD Academy, he was part of designing the entity structure itself — including an ownerless Web3 entity holding both fiat accounts and digital wallets, built to support the relaunched business after the BitMEX Academy buyout. At Elev8te, he owned the entity structuring for the consultancy from its founding.

Both, depending on the engagement. At Tata, as Associate Director for IoT Solutions, he built the GTM strategy, segmentation, and annual operating plan for the entire Mobility and IoT product portfolio across three regions — APAC, EMEA and the Americas.

Yes — at Elev8te, he built a network of 12 advisors across three pillars: business development and growth, funding and venture capital, and fractional resourcing, and used that network to help secure the firm's first client contracts.

Where the role has called for it, yes. At XD Academy, he owned the full product lifecycle alongside the CMO and CTO — token economics design, e-learning platform development, and video course production — because at that stage of a venture, strategy, operations and product aren't really separable.

He co-led the buyout of BitMEX Academy from BitMEX / HDR Global, then relaunched it as XD Academy — running the legal, financial, and corporate structuring work through the transition, including the entity design that followed.

Both, at XD Academy: he was part of raising $1M in seed funding from an angel investor and a Singapore-based Web3 VC during the post-FTX downturn, and then managed the company's runway directly on a two-week cash-review cycle.

At XD Academy, he managed the company's runway on a two-week cash-review cycle through a difficult fundraising environment, the post-FTX downturn — a tighter cadence than most larger organizations need, but the right one for a venture-stage business watching its cash position closely.

At BitMEX Academy, he negotiated over $1.5M in vendor and partner contracts for product build and media production, ahead of formal budget approval timelines, while taking the platform from concept to a live product in under six months.

Yes — XD Academy's $1M seed round closed during the post-FTX market downturn, one of the more difficult recent windows for crypto-adjacent fundraising, and he managed the company's cash position on a two-week review cycle through that period.

Both are possible. The Strategy & Annual Operating Plan and Custom Engagement services on this site are structured as defined, time-boxed engagements, while a founding or COO-style Strategy & Operations role is naturally a fuller commitment. Worth scoping directly based on what the situation actually needs.

Management consulting typically ends with a recommendation. Olivier's Strategy & Operations work has consistently meant staying to build and run what comes after the recommendation — the entity, the budget, the plan, the team. At Elev8te and XD Academy, he was inside the business as an operator and co-founder, not an outside advisor handing off a deck.

A Chief of Staff and Strategy & Operations leader based in Singapore, working across Asia Pacific, with 15+ years of experience including an extended tenure as Chief of Staff to a CEO across multiple companies. Full background is on the About page.

15+ years spanning three related disciplines: Chief of Staff work (6.2 years across three companies, including 3.8 years at a $4bn revenue, 14,000-person operator), GTM & Growth operations (both designing the commercial engine and carrying a sales number inside it), and Strategy & Operations for ventures and product portfolios built from scratch. His career spans Tata Communications, Circles.Life, and Digital Edge, where he is currently a Senior Director covering Growth Enablement and GTM Operations.

From a $4bn revenue, 14,000-person listed operator (Tata Communications) through to venture-backed scale-ups (Circles.Life) and infrastructure businesses building out across Asia Pacific (Digital Edge) — plus venture-stage builds in Web3 and EdTech (XD Academy, BitMEX Academy) and a boutique consultancy he co-founded (Elev8te). The constant across all of them has been direct proximity to the CEO or founding team, not the size of the company.

Telecommunications, digital infrastructure and data centers, MVNO / consumer mobile, Web3 and crypto-adjacent education, and boutique consulting across AgTech, professional services and security. The constant across industries has been the operating discipline, not the sector.

Both. He's built the plan and the operating budget for a two-person consultancy from day zero, run a Web3 startup through a seed raise, and run corporate planning for a 14,000-person listed company. The size of the organization changes the shape of the work, not whether it fits.

Most of his roles — Chief of Staff especially — have carried no direct reports, working through influence rather than authority. Where he has managed people directly (analysts at Tata, product and operations functions as COO at XD Academy), team sizes have been small. If a role needs someone to build and scale a large function, that's worth a direct conversation.

English and French, both native. Day-to-day work across Asia Pacific happens in English.

Based in Singapore, working across Asia Pacific, and currently holds a Singapore Employment Pass — so no work-pass sponsorship is required for Singapore-based engagements. Open to relocation for the right role.

Yes. References from CEOs and executive team members he has worked with directly are available on request, and are noted on the About page. Best way to request them is to get in touch directly.

Running the annual and quarterly planning cycle from corporate strategy down to team-level KPIs, preparing executive and board-level communications, building the performance management cadence that tracks whether the plan is working, and taking on the cross-functional initiatives that don't have a natural home in any single department. See Services for how this breaks down into specific engagement types.

Six broad shapes of work: embedded Chief of Staff support, Strategy & Annual Operating Plan design, Executive & Board Communications, Performance Management & Business Reviews, a GTM & Revenue Operations Diagnostic, and custom engagements for anything that doesn't fit the first five. Full detail on each is on the Services page.

Working directly alongside a CEO or executive team as their Chief of Staff, either as a full-time hire or in a defined engagement: running the planning cadence, structuring decisions, and owning cross-functional execution that would otherwise fall through the cracks.

Taking a company's strategy and turning it into an executable annual operating plan, cascaded from corporate goals down to the KRAs and KPIs of individual teams — the same process Olivier has built for a global product portfolio and run at organizations with over 14,000 employees.

Structuring and preparing the materials an executive team uses to communicate upward and outward: board decks, QBRs, leadership offsites, and investor updates, built to be decision-ready rather than just descriptive.

Building the review discipline and reporting infrastructure — dashboards, business review formats, and KPI tracking — that tells an executive team honestly whether the plan is working, and surfaces the decisions that need to be made when it isn't.

A structured review of the revenue engine — pipeline health, funnel conversion, forecast accuracy, pricing and deal desk mechanics — that identifies where the GTM motion is leaking value and what to fix first.

That's what the Custom Engagement option on the Services page is for. Most of the work Olivier takes on starts as a conversation about a specific problem, not a fixed package. Book a meeting to talk it through.

Chief of Staff, Strategy & Operations, or GTM Operations leadership. The common thread across all three is the same: owning the operating system that sits between an executive team's intent and the organization's execution.

Currently employed at Digital Edge and open to the right conversation, in confidence. Notice period and realistic start dates are best worked through directly once there's mutual interest.

Yes, for the right role. Currently based in Singapore, working across Asia Pacific, on a Singapore Employment Pass.

Selectively, where it doesn't conflict with current commitments. The engagements listed on this site are the shapes of work taken on most often.

Full-time roles get full-time focus, and any advisory or fractional work alongside one is disclosed upfront and structured to avoid conflicts. If this matters for your specific situation, raise it directly — it's a normal part of an early conversation given his current role.

Yes. Given Olivier's current role, discretion is standard practice on both sides. Say so directly when you get in touch and it will be treated accordingly.

Chief of Staff work benefits from physical proximity to the executive team it supports, so Olivier prioritizes Singapore-based or regionally-based roles for that kind of engagement. GTM & Growth and Strategy & Operations work can flex more, including remote or hybrid setups — worth discussing for the specific role.

Typically a 30-minute call to understand the problem you're trying to solve and whether there's a fit, followed by either a normal interview process for a full-time role or a written scope for a services engagement. Book a meeting directly to start that conversation.

Book a meeting directly, or email chat@ojpstudio.com. For anything else, use the Contact page.

Speed and quality of decision-making. A good Chief of Staff shortens the distance between an executive team having an idea and the organization executing it, by removing the coordination tax that otherwise falls on the CEO personally, and by making sure decisions are made with structured options rather than incomplete information.

Strategic initiatives that stall between functions because no one owns the handoff. Planning cycles that are inconsistent or exist only in someone's head. Board and executive materials that describe what happened instead of driving what happens next. Pipeline and revenue reporting that no one fully trusts. Each of these maps to one of the engagement types above.

Meaningfully within the first 90 days on diagnostic and structural work — planning cadence, reporting gaps, quick wins — with deeper organizational impact compounding over the following two to three quarters as the operating rhythm takes hold.