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Chief of Staff
Why this is a great job
If you want to be in a key role at a company that has an influence in the physical world, this could be the role for you. As a bonus, you’ll be reporting to someone that was previously in the chief of staff role at the company, so you’ll have mentorship and likely very clear responsibilities.
The nitty gritty
Company website: www.oden.io
Location: NYC
Who you’d be working for: Jen Williams, COO
About Oden
We are on the brink of the next industrial revolution and Oden is using our technologies to usher in the new era of manufacturing.
We’re on a mission to eliminate waste in manufacturing. Manufacturing has long been an analog world, but this has changed, now manufacturers are overloaded with data but few insights.
We empower engineering and operations leaders to find and solve and prevent quality and performance issues through our advanced analytics and pre-built ML models. Through our manufacturing analytics platform, we bring a new level of efficiency, sustainability and competitiveness to the people who make our world.
Why We Do It:
We like to enable those who make things - to make more, to waste less, to serve their customers, and to thrive in a competitive world. Help enough makers, and the world can give us all the abundance we want for less cost and environmental impact. We’re on the verge of a 4th industrial revolution that begs for absolute efficiency in all factors of life. We plan to deliver that to everyone who makes things.
The Role:
We’re looking for a proactive, organized, and analytically-minded Chief of Staff to work closely with the COO and CEO to take many of our responsibilities and make them your own. We will work as a group together daily tackling key issues facing Oden and finding new ways to improve and grow the company. The COO and CEO will be able to make better, faster decisions thanks to the work done by this role.
You will serve as the ‘connective tissue’ between the leadership team and the rest of the organization, helping to connect the dots between people, functions, and projects to drive efficient business decisions. This is a unique, high-impact role that broadens your understanding of what it takes to build a world-class SaaS business and helps build and sharpen your executive-level mindset. Success in this role is a launching pad for leadership opportunities across the company - and your career.
If you are unfamiliar with the role, please read Why You Need Two Chiefs in the Executive Office. We know the Chief of Staff role is broad and varies from company to company. For this role, we are looking for someone mid-career, director-level who likely has 5+ years of professional work experience.
This role will be based in our New York office, and report directly to the COO.
Responsibilities Include But Not Limited To:
Drive strategic priorities, special projects and cross-functional initiatives most important to the leadership team, ensuring timely and thorough completion, and following up on progress and status at each weekly meeting
Owning the creation, completion and communication of quarterly OKRs for the Oden leadership team and each department - as well as the continued tracking and communication of success metrics
Ownership of analysis and creation of materials for key meetings and updates (e.g. Board decks, investor recaps, fundraising pitch decks); develop agendas, communications, and other materials
Supporting company management of board and investors including quarterly board meetings, annual strategy sessions and other ad hoc discussions
Help prepare for, and run company-wide meetings
Work with COO and People Ops on key people initiatives including recruiting, organizational planning, employee engagement
Directly support CEO and COO in day-to-day operations of the company including managing priorities, ensuring they are properly prepared for meetings and spending their time in the most effective way possible
Diagnose problems, make data-driven, actionable and scalable recommendations to solve them, with accountability to the leadership team, and execute on those recommendations
Own the internal communication strategy and execution including town hall, messaging for quarterly strategic focuses and other initiatives
Execute efficient regular leadership team meetings, setting agendas, and guaranteeing follow up actions
Catching owner-less projects as they are created and see them through to completion; see around corners and think ten steps ahead to enable the company and the CEO/COO to be prepared for the future
Special projects, people operations and communications will be your areas of focus, covering a wide surface area of potential opportunities.
Preferred Experience:
5+ years of relevant experience from progressive business/operations roles, management consulting, investment banking, etc. (Strong general business skills, and systems thinker with an ability to resolve complex problems with imperfect information are what we are optimizing for more so than the number of years.)
Exceptional leadership and communication skills – a good listener who can be both empathetic and pragmatic
Proven ability to handle multiple competing priorities in a fast-paced, results-driven, rapidly changing environment. Demonstrated ability to track, prioritize and drive multiple concurrent projects to success
Experience leading projects end-to-end, getting cross-functional alignment and meeting goals
Strong interpersonal skills and a knack for productive collaboration across varying departments through effective consensus building
Proven problem solver who can make clear-headed decisions while under pressure
Key Traits about You:
Ownership mindset: you’re trustworthy and hold yourself accountable for executing the commitments you’ve made to the team. You can step up and lead when a key, complex cross-functional initiative doesn’t have a clear owner.
Nailed the genius of the “and”: you’re both strategic and tactical - and can build solutions for the long-term while meeting short-term expectations - and getting creative in how we achieve both
No fear in embracing new content: you’re a lifelong learner and are comfortable leaning into unfamiliar domains. You’re proactive and willing to tap into your networks to get up to speed on any and all topics.
Displays courage: given your position, you have full access to the happenings of the business, and can subsequently spot the gaps. You can triage these issues effectively and surface them to the CEO/COO. You’re able to lay out clear expectations and deliver feedback when expectations aren’t met. You are comfortable giving them both direct feedback and pushing back hard when needed.
Effective at context switching: you can switch from administrative meetings (ex. how are we executing on our project plan?) to more strategic meetings (ex. how should we incorporate internal expansion into our go-to-market model?) throughout the day.
Approachable and fluent when building relationships: you lead with high EQ and intentionally practice empathy with all employees, ranging from entry-level to senior leadership.
What We Offer You:
Measurable impact on the world and the chance to help real people - family businesses, entrepreneurs, engineers.
An opportunity to build lasting, collaborative relationships with visionary C-level clients in the manufacturing, Industry 4.0, and AI spaces
A platform that has the potential to evolve beyond what we have envisioned now.
Scientific and transparent thinking, for everyone involved.