Chief of Staff to the Founder and CEO

Job Description

About Koala Optics

Koala Optics is a founder-owned consumer products company with two brands. Koala makes premium lens and screen care: cleaning sprays and Japanese-woven microfiber cloths. Calyptus makes high-concentration cleaning vinegar and related household products. Both brands built their following on Amazon, which remains our primary channel, and in 2026 Koala launched into national retail with a footprint of more than 4,300 stores. Next up: additional retailers, adjacent Koala lines (screens, disposable wipes), and Calyptus in retail.

We run deliberately lean. The founder, a very small core team, and a network of contract manufacturers, 3PLs, an Amazon agency, an ad agency, a retail broker, and advisors do the executing. An AI-enabled management system built in-house handles ingestion, memory, risk surfacing, and drafting. Decisions and relationships stay human.

The role

The constraint on our growth is no longer product or demand. It is the management load of running that partner network, and today the founder is the only one watching it. Partners perform when watched and drift when not.

You will be the closest extension of the founder in the business. Not a coordination layer between him and the partners. Someone who watches what he watches, hears the subtext in a vendor call, catches the constraint nobody named, and drives the issue to done. Within a defined scope you will lead partner calls, make the bounded operating decisions, and bring back only the decisions, material risks, and relationship moments that genuinely need him.

What you will own

- The partner network. Contract manufacturing, 3PL and fulfillment, Amazon and advertising agencies, retail broker, plus finance, legal, and compliance vendors. Contracts, commitments, deliverables, follow-through.

- The operating cadence. Today it is priority-driven and founder-run. Building a durable weekly and monthly rhythm, with a decision log, owners, dates, and early warning on slippage, is yours.

- The in-flight priorities. The 3PL and Seller Fulfilled Prime rollout. Making our first national retail account run cleanly end to end so it becomes the template for the next ones. Retail label and compliance readiness for Calyptus. Inventory and working-capital planning as retail scales.

- Decision-ready analysis. Facts established, options framed, recommendation made, risk named. Then the follow-through once the decision is made.

- The AI-enabled management system, as its business owner. Keep its knowledge, workflows, and outputs accurate and useful, define where human review sits, and protect access and sensitive information.

What this role is not

Not an executive assistant role, a communications role, or a board-deck role. Not a project manager who reports status while the founder still closes the loop. If your instinct on a messy problem is to stand up a tracker and schedule a review, this is not the fit. If your instinct is to get on the phone, establish what is actually true, decide what you are authorized to decide, and make the problem go away, keep reading.

Who does well here

- 8+ years of progressive experience, or equivalent evidence of broad ownership, in a founder's office, high-growth company, consulting environment, or operating role. Chief of Staff, GM, Head of Operations, and founder backgrounds all fit.

- You have personally owned recurring operating work with real dependencies, not only time-bounded projects. Consumer products, e-commerce, Amazon, retail, supply chain, or manufacturing exposure shortens the learning curve.

- You have held vendors and partners to commitments, had the hard conversation, and kept the relationship useful afterward.

- You are fluent in P&L, cash, margin, inventory, and working capital, and comfortable reconciling imperfect data yourself.

- You compress: many inputs into a short, decision-ready brief with the real question on top.

- You push back. You disagree with the founder when the facts warrant it, then carry the final decision faithfully.

- You use AI daily in real work and know when to verify its output.

- You will do the unglamorous residue (discrepancies, item setup, reconciliations, vendor chasing) and design it away over time, without designing yourself away from it.

What success looks like in the first six months

- Priorities run through a disciplined plan with clear owners, dates, decisions, and risk visibility.

- At least two major initiatives show documented gains in cycle time, risk, cost, or commercial outcome.

- Missed partner commitments surface early, before they become founder-owned emergencies.

- The founder's time has moved measurably toward product, growth, capital, and major relationships.

Process

Two conversations, then a hands-on work sample on a sanitized operating problem, then references. We test the work, not the interview.