A Chief of Staff is one of the highest-leverage investments you can make. It is also one of the easiest to get wrong.
Not because of the person, usually. Because the role was scoped wrong, introduced badly, or handed to someone without the structural conditions to succeed. The authority was never clearly established. The mandate was ambiguous from day one. The relationship quietly drifted into expensive administrative support while the strategic function you actually needed went unfilled.
We fix that. Before it happens, or after.
A Chief of Staff hire at the level most executives are making this investment runs $175,000–$250,000 in salary alone. Add recruiting fees, onboarding time, and the organizational drag of a role that isn’t functioning correctly, and a failed or underperforming CoS engagement costs north of $400,000 before you’ve accounted for the leadership bandwidth you spent managing it instead of running the organization.
More to the point: a Chief of Staff who is technically in the role but operating below it — absorbed in operational work while the strategic coordination function sits empty — is costing you that investment every year while producing a fraction of the return. Our advisory engagement tells you specifically what’s broken, shows you what it takes to fix it, and gives you the tools to build a relationship that actually scales your capacity.
Three moments when this engagement has the highest return.
We start with an intake conversation to understand what’s actually happening — not the presenting issue, but the root one. From there, sessions are built around your specific situation.
Getting the role designed correctly before anyone walks in the door
What authority, access, and mandate need to be explicitly established. How to introduce the CoS to your leadership team in a way that preserves their effectiveness before they’ve had the chance to demonstrate it. What the role actually needs to look like given how you operate, not how the job description says it should.
Whether the relationship is tracking toward what you actually need
What’s working structurally, what isn’t, and what adjustments close the gap before the dysfunction becomes entrenched. Whether your CoS is operating at the level the role requires — and if not, whether that’s a capability problem, a structural one, or something you’ve inadvertently created.
Diagnosing specifically what’s broken, not just that it isn’t working
Which structural pillar is missing, where the trust architecture has gaps, and whether the fix sits with your CoS, with you, or with the conditions of the role itself. Most executives in this position already know something is wrong. What they don’t have is a precise diagnosis.
Diagnostic frameworks built specifically for this relationship.
Our advisory sessions draw on proprietary frameworks built specifically for the CoS relationship, not adapted from general leadership training. Each one addresses a different dimension of why this relationship succeeds or fails.
- Five-Pillar Trust ArchitectureA diagnostic model that identifies whether your CoS can function in the operating environment you’ve created for them, and what’s missing if they can’t. Maps trust conditions across five dimensions, each of which must be present for the role to perform.
- Nine-Dimension Leadership Operating SignatureA structured diagnostic of how you actually operate as a leader, under pressure, across three clusters of behavior — and what that operating signature demands from the person in the CoS role. Most executives have never had this mapped with this precision.
- CoS Readiness TaxonomyA structured assessment that distinguishes between a CoS who needs development and one who was set up to fail before they started. Removes the guesswork from decisions about whether to invest further, restructure the role, or make a change.
Concrete outputs. Not just better conversations.
Every session produces something usable. By the end of the engagement you will have a set of working documents built around your specific organization, your operating style, and the specific CoS relationship you’re navigating. Between sessions, you have direct access to both Rachael and Suzi — not a ticketing system, not a support queue.
A defined role scope for your CoS
What your CoS owns, what they don’t, and how that boundary is maintained as the organization evolves. Built around your specific leadership structure, not a generic job description.
A trust architecture assessment
A diagnostic showing precisely where the conditions for your CoS to succeed are present, where they’re missing, and a concrete plan to close the gaps.
Your Leadership Operating Signature
A mapped profile of how you operate across nine dimensions, what your operating environment demands from the people around you, where it creates friction, and what a CoS needs to look like to function effectively in it.
Clear expectations and success metrics
A written framework for what success looks like in the CoS relationship at three months, six months, and one year — and how you’ll both know when it’s working and when it needs to be adjusted.
The end state: a Chief of Staff who extends your reach, sharpens your decision-making, and gives your organization a coordination capacity it didn’t have before. Not a well-meaning assistant. A strategic multiplier.
Any executive with a Chief of Staff, or considering one.
You don’t need to already have a CoS in place. Some of our most effective engagements happen before the hire, when we can design the role correctly before anyone walks in the door. What you do need is a genuine problem to solve. If the relationship is working exactly as it should, you don’t need us. If there’s a gap between what you expected and what you have — in authority, in output, in strategic contribution — that’s where this work begins.
Considering hiring a CoS
You want to get the architecture right before the hire: scope, authority, introduction strategy, and the operating relationship design that determines whether the investment pays off.
CoS in place, relationship underperforming
Something isn’t working and you can’t quite name what it is. Or you can name it, but your interventions aren’t landing. You need a precise diagnosis before you make a decision that’s hard to reverse.
CoS in place, working well, want to go further
The relationship functions. You want to understand your own operating signature more precisely, unlock the next level of what the CoS can do, and design the conditions for genuine strategic partnership.
What this costs, and what it’s worth.
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.
Between them, they bring a diagnostic depth and operating credibility that doesn’t exist elsewhere in a CoS-specific advisory context. The engagement is scoped to your specific situation, and structured to put the right perspective in front of you at the right moment — not to deliver a predetermined program.
One intake plus six 50-minute working sessions.
One intake plus twelve 50-minute working sessions.
Per month, for ongoing executive advisory relationships.
- Direct access to Rachael and Suzi between sessions
- Written deliverables you own and keep
- Built around your specific situation — no predetermined curriculum
- Both practitioners engaged where the work requires it
- Fees paid in two equal installments: half at signing, half after the third session (6-session) or sixth session (12-session).