Chief of Staff

About the Role

Ontra is seeking a Chief of Staff (CoS) reporting to our founder and CEO. 

The CoS will be a trusted advisor to the leadership team and the critical force behind streamlining executive operations. The focus of this role will be to optimize the executive team's time and focus, synthesizing multiple points of view, aligning on direction, and ensuring their energy is directed toward the highest-impact activities.

The ideal candidate will act as the glue that drives the leadership team forward as a cohesive and effective unit, leveraging strong business judgment, sophisticated communication skills, strong organizational skills, and a data-driven approach to problem-solving. 

If you are a highly autonomous leader with a proven ability to execute with urgency, navigate complex and fast-paced environments, and lead with professionalism, we’d love to get to know you.

What You’ll Do

• Operational Rhythm: Foster a candid and results-oriented environment within the leadership team, implementing a clear operational cadence for leadership meetings and offsites to define corporate strategy and ensure rigorous tracking of progress against key business objectives. 
• Strategic Partner: Serve as a trusted advisor to the leadership team by identifying key strategic topics to address, providing insights, analyzing data, and offering objective feedback on key decisions.
• Strategic Communication: Orchestrate the effective communication and evangelism of corporate strategy, objectives, and key results, ensuring clarity, buy-in, and alignment across the leadership team and all company levels.
• Relationship Management: Strategically build and enhance relationships among the leadership team, internal teams, the board, and key external stakeholders, optimizing communication channels for sharing results and proactively addressing obstacles to foster collaboration and achieve collective goals.
• Organizational Health & Conflict Resolution: Proactively surface and address underlying issues, tensions, or misalignments within the organization and the leadership team. You will create a safe environment for candid discussions and ensure controversial but critical topics are brought to the table and resolved constructively. 
• Special Projects and Initiatives: Oversee crucial short-term projects that span multiple teams or departments, and incubate emerging capabilities until they are ready for formal placement.
• People Leadership: Hire, develop, and retain our Executive Assistant team, ensuring high-quality, high-impact support for our top-line leadership 

What You’ll Bring

• Experience: 8+ years of work experience within a scaling organization, displaying strong organizational and project management ability; MBA and consulting experience at a top firm preferred.
• Leadership and Management: Prior experience as a Chief of Staff or similarly scoped role, with demonstrated effectiveness in leadership, strategic planning, project management, and cross-functional team coordination. 
• Communication & Influence: Superior verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to distill complex information into clear insights for an executive audience and influence outcomes across all levels of the organization.
• Operational Excellence: A strong bias for action and a demonstrated ability to drive complex, cross-functional projects from conception to completion, ensuring accountability and navigating operational bottlenecks.
• Situational Awareness: Navigates interpersonal interactions with discretion and respect, considering the impact of their words and actions on others, especially in delicate or challenging situations. Able to facilitate a wide array of conversations at various levels of the organization. 
• Market Knowledge: Strong familiarity with private markets, including products and customer sets, demonstrating an understanding of market dynamics and client needs.
• Travel: Willing to travel as needed for business purposes and company collaboration.