Experienced Chiefs of Staff arrive here two different ways.
The engagement is the same. The starting point isn’t. We work with both, and what you need from us depends entirely on which situation you’re in.
The role has quietly contracted
You’ve been in the role for a year or more. You know how to function in it. But somewhere along the way, the strategic work got crowded out. The relationship with your executive has drifted from what it was supposed to be. And the gap between where you are and where you should be is getting harder to close from the inside.
- You’re doing more coordination than strategy, and it keeps expanding
- Your access to the executive has narrowed in ways you can’t quite explain
- You’ve lost ground on scope and you’re not sure how to reclaim it
- You feel like you’re managing the role rather than leading from it
You’re ready to play at a higher level
The role works. The relationship with your executive is solid. You’ve built credibility and earned real authority. But you know there’s a ceiling on what you can do from where you are, and you’re starting to think seriously about what comes next.
- You want to think more strategically about your own operating approach
- You’re not sure how to translate CoS experience into the next career move
- You want to understand your own leadership operating signature more precisely
- You want a bigger impact on organizational direction, not just execution
Experienced Chiefs of Staff often find themselves in a strange position. They have figured out how to do the job, but the job has quietly contracted around them. And they can feel it, but they can’t fix it from where they’re standing.The Coul & Gold Group
A methodology for the specific challenges of this stage.
This isn’t a first-year CoS program with more experience assumed. It’s built for the specific problems that show up later, when the fundamentals are in place but something more complex is getting in the way. We begin with a role audit — a structured diagnostic of what’s working, what’s eroded, and what was never set up correctly to begin with. From there, the sessions address what the audit surfaces. The curriculum follows the problem, not the other way around.
- Role auditA structured diagnostic covering what’s working, what’s eroded, and what was never set up correctly. The starting point for every established CoS engagement.
- Authority & scope renegotiationHow to reclaim or expand your mandate with your executive, without damaging the relationship or your standing. The language, the timing, and the structural moves that actually work.
- Strategic positioning & visibilityHow to elevate your contribution to organizational direction, not just execution, and make that contribution legible to the people who need to see it.
- Leadership Operating SignatureA nine-dimension diagnostic of how you actually operate — your patterns under pressure, your edges, and what a more intentional version of your leadership style makes possible.
- Career trajectory & next-role planningFor the CoS who is thinking about what comes next: how to translate this experience into the right next move, and how to position yourself for it deliberately.
Tangible outputs at every stage of the engagement.
Every session produces something concrete. By the end of the engagement you will have a set of working documents that reflect where you actually are, and a clear-eyed picture of where you’re going and how to get there. Between sessions, you have direct access to both Rachael and Suzi.
A role audit report
A written diagnostic of your current role: what’s working, what has eroded, and what was structurally compromised from the start. Clear-eyed and specific, not an encouragement document.
An authority renegotiation plan
A concrete strategy for reclaiming or expanding your scope — the framing, the timing, the specific conversations to have with your executive, and the structural changes that need to accompany them.
Your Leadership Operating Signature
A nine-dimension diagnostic of how you operate as a leader, your patterns, your edges, and what a more deliberate version of your approach makes possible.
A strategic positioning plan
How to elevate your contribution to organizational direction, make it visible to the right people, and build the conditions for genuine strategic partnership with your executive and the leadership team.
A career trajectory document
Where you are, where you’re going, and how to get there — including how to translate CoS experience into the right next role, and how to position yourself for it deliberately rather than by accident.
A different kind of engagement. Priced accordingly.
Rachael Goldfarb built her career in the rooms where the CoS role had to work — the Clinton White House, the Gates Foundation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where she was employee #19 and helped build an agency from scratch. Suzi Coul served as Chief of Staff to a Deputy Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor, one of the most senior roles in British government, with complete operational authority across parliamentary, ministerial, and political responsibilities.
They bring two perspectives that almost never appear in the same engagement: direct operating experience inside the role at the highest levels, and the diagnostic architecture that determines whether that role succeeds or stalls. For an established CoS who is ready to go further, that combination is the difference between advice and a genuine reckoning.
Sessions are 50 minutes, scheduled at your cadence.
One intake plus six 50-minute working sessions.
One intake plus twelve 50-minute working sessions.
- Written deliverables you own and keep
- Direct access to Rachael and Suzi between sessions
- Curriculum follows your specific situation — no predetermined program
- Fees paid in two equal installments: half at signing, half after the third session (6-session) or sixth session (12-session).
- Many organizations fund this. Our Funding Request Builder drafts the memo for you.