Chief of Staff - East Coast

Chief Of Staff

This is not a Chief of Staff role in the traditional sense. We are not looking for a glorified executive assistant, and we are not looking for a strategist who is too senior to roll up their sleeves. We are looking for a right-hand operator with the ambition, range and commercial instinct to help run the engine room of Render Networks as we scale toward a 2028 exit.

The relationship is a working partnership. You will be close to the CEO day-to-day, but the job is about making the company run better, not about orbiting one person. You will represent the company in rooms where the CEO cannot be, hold the operating rhythm together, and own HR, Business Operations and Change Management as a single integrated function. You will sit at the centre of the Leadership Team and be measured on how well the business executes.

This role exists because we are doing something specific and ambitious. Render builds the operating system for large-scale infrastructure deployment across utility sectors, including fibre, electric, gas and water. The same software backbone that runs a fibre build for a national carrier runs grid hardening for an electric utility and asset management across a regional water network. We are transforming the company into an AI-first business, building a digital operating model that lets us scale without scaling headcount linearly, and preparing for a high-multiple exit in 2028. That requires someone who can hold the strategic frame, run the operational tempo, and act as a trusted proxy across the business at the same time.

Right-hand support to the CEO. You will be a genuine partner in how the CEO spends his time and shows up across the business. That includes representing him on calls and in meetings where his time cannot stretch, owning calendar and inbox rhythm, expenses and travel, and making sure the operating week holds together. These tasks matter because they are the connective tissue of the role. Holding them gives you the visibility, context and proximity to make every other part of the job work. The relationship is built on trust, judgement and a shared standard for how things get done.

People and culture. End-to-end HR including digitalizing processes, talent strategy and hiring through performance, leadership development, compensation design and culture. You will build the systems and people infrastructure of a company that needs to attract elite operators and engineers across multiple sectors, and you will help set the cultural tone of speed, quality and ownership that defines how we work.

Business operations. Working with the CFO, establish the systems, rhythms and instrumentation that make a leadership team effective. Quarterly planning, OKRs, board reporting cadence, internal communications, decision velocity, and the operating cadence that connects strategy to execution. You will be the architect of how the company runs day to day.

AI-first transformation. Lead the modernisation agenda that turns Render into a genuinely AI-native operating model. This is not about deploying tools for the sake of it. It is about rewiring how every function works, from go-to-market to engineering to finance, so that AI is embedded in the workflow rather than bolted on. You will be the internal owner of how the operating model evolves.

Change management. Take the LT through the changes needed to get from where we are to where we are going. M&A integration, organizational design, process redesign, new ways of working. Change at this pace breaks companies that do not run it well. You will run it well.

Customer-facing innovation. Spend time with our customers across fibre, electric, gas and water. Understand how they work, where they are stuck, and what we should be building next into our operating model that gives them and us an edge. The best ideas about how Render should run will come from watching how the best infrastructure operators run, regardless of which utility they serve. Build a CoS network.

Qualifications

Someone who has operated at pace inside a high-growth software or technology business, ideally through a transformation programme or an exit. Equally comfortable in a leadership team conversation, a customer meeting, a hiring decision, a workflow redesign session, and a calendar reshuffle at 9pm.

You will have real depth in at least two of the three core areas (People, BizOps, Change) and the curiosity and pace to learn the third. You will have held a seat close to a CEO or founder before, or you will be ready to. You understand that the role is built on trust earned across the small things and the large ones, and that both are treated with the same standard of execution.

You will be obsessive about AI and digital tooling, not as a topic but as a way of working. You already run your own work this way. You will bring that bias to every function you touch.

Low ego, exacting standards, commercially sharp, allergic to corporate theatre. You can write clearly, present cleanly, and influence senior people without needing to outrank them. You are discreet by default, direct when it matters, and your judgement is the thing the role hinges on.

$130,000 - $160,000 a year