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The Chief of Staff is an extremely broad ranging role here at Particular Audience. It covers all things strategy, operations and administrative within the business. This includes raising capital, managing cash flow, commercial analysis, monitoring of our cost base,building out our finance and HR functions, dealing with investors, and general analysis and reporting.
No two days are alike. A key focus for me lately has been cost optimisation initiatives and working with investors to secure our next capital raise. Some days involve working on super interesting operational initiatives, but others can involve mundane tasks crucial to running a business, invoicing customers, monthly reporting, and taking out the bins
I come from a corporate finance and private equity background, where I specialised in the acquisition and turnaround of businesses in the retail sector. Throughout the acquisition and integration process, I was always most interested in working with management teams to set and implement growth strategies. After a number of years sitting on the investment side of things, I made the jump into startups and have never looked back.
You can typically learn anything on the job with the right attitude and sense of curiosity. Chief of Staff is no different. The role is almost one of a “specialist generalist”. You need to be both analytical and commercial, and you need to be able to pivot between different tasks quickly. A genuine interest in running and growing a business would be the foundation.
It’s super broad, and I wouldn’t want to limit it to specific backgrounds, but it could be any job with an analytical background including M&A, consulting, engineering, law, or accounting
Curiosity and a genuine interest in the intricacies of running a business is the best base. Beyond that, you can learn anything.
I joined PA after a few meetings with James (CEO). My previous retail investment experience was highly complementary, and he sold me on the product and growth of the business.
If you’re aiming for Chief of Staff (or any role) at a Seed-to-Series B startup, you first need to ask yourself whether you believe in the product or service that the business is selling. After that, you need to ask yourself if you get along with the founder(s). Once you’re happy with those elements, always ask how much runway they have. This is one of the toughest tech environments in the last 15 years and in this market, runway is the most vital metric to look for before joining a startup. They need at least 12-18 months runway if they’re scaling up their team.
These days I use ChatGPT for everything!
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Here are five current active roles in the EVP portfolio:
