You hired well. The first year decides whether it shows.
Everyone talks about the first 90 days. The Chief of Staff role takes a full year to inhabit well, often closer to eighteen months to hold with real authority, because the trust, influence and standing the role runs on are built rather than granted. Most new Chiefs of Staff are left to work that out alone, and most of what goes wrong is structural: unclear authority, a scope that drifts, stakeholders approached in the wrong order, a week with no operating rhythm.
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.
First-Year Advisory gives your new Chief of Staff a structured engagement through that year, with two practitioners who have held the role. You get a Chief of Staff who reaches full capability faster, and a role that works the way you designed it.
Six or twelve sessions. Built around your executive office, not a curriculum.
- The baselineAn intake call and an honest read on how your Chief of Staff is landing: where they already add lift, and where they create drag.
- The foundationAuthority structure and scope negotiation with you. Stakeholder mapping and relationship sequencing. Operating-rhythm design: the week, the meetings, the communication. Built session by session, 50 minutes each.
- The shift to strategic authorityThe arc of the first year mapped explicitly, so they move through the tactical work that dominates early months without getting trapped in it, and know when the shift to strategic work has been earned.
Direct access to Rachael and Suzi between sessions. Every session produces something usable: a 12–18 month role roadmap, a meeting operating model, and a personal trust-gap plan, all built around you and your organization rather than adapted from a template.
A Chief of Staff who is being built, not left to figure it out.
Clear terms with your Chief of Staff
The engagement forces the conversations about authority and scope that executives and new Chiefs of Staff usually avoid until something breaks. You have them early, on purpose.
Your time back sooner
A Chief of Staff who protects and extends your time is the point of the role. The engagement gets them there in months rather than in their second year.
Working documents they keep
A role roadmap, a meeting operating model, a trust-gap diagnosis. Built for your organization, owned by them.
Fewer surprises
Small grinds named and fixed in a session, before they become the conversation you did not want to have.
What is said in sessions stays with your Chief of Staff. That confidentiality is what makes the engagement work: they can bring the real problem, including the ones about you.
Two configurations. Both cost less than a month of the salary you just committed.
One intake call and six working sessions over three months. Direct access to Rachael and Suzi between sessions.
One intake call and twelve working sessions over six months. The full first-year arc, with the shift to strategic authority mapped and worked through.
- Fees in USD. Sponsored by the executive or the organization, or commissioned by the Chief of Staff directly. Tell us which on the call.
- Applications are five short questions, read only by Rachael and Suzi, with a reply within two business days. Your Chief of Staff can apply, or you can start the conversation for them.
Their side of the desk, and yours.
First-Year Advisory builds the Chief of Staff. Executive Advisory builds the role from your side: the authority you delegate, the operating relationship, the way you introduce the role to your leadership team. Together they cover both sides of the desk.
Executive Advisory
Design the role, the authority and the operating relationship, before or after the hire. From $12,000.
See the advisory →Fit & Friction
Your operating profile mapped against your Chief of Staff’s: where it works, where it grinds, and what makes it last.
See the diagnostic →What executives ask before sponsoring it.
Will I get reports on my Chief of Staff?
No. The advisory relationship is with them, and what is discussed in sessions stays with them. What you get is a Chief of Staff who arrives at your 1:1s with clearer questions, a defined scope and a plan for the year.
When should it start?
Ideally in the first weeks of the role, when expectations are still being set. It is also commissioned when a Chief of Staff is a few months in and the role is starting to grind.
Is this coaching?
No. It is a structured advisory engagement built for this role: authority, scope, stakeholders, operating rhythm, and a set of working documents the Chief of Staff builds and keeps.
Can the organization fund it?
Yes, and many do. If your Chief of Staff needs to make the case internally, the Funding Request Builder drafts the memo.
What about my side of the relationship?
Executive Advisory. Same practitioners, working with you on the role design, the authority and the operating relationship. Some executives run both at once.