- High pay and rensponsibility makes this role highyly coveted.
- The recruitment drive for a chief of staff signals market maturity, recruiters say.
Make six figures, drive business strategy, and hang out with crypto CEOs.
If that sounds like your cup of tea, you might be right for a chief of staff role — and right now, there’s a hiring spree for this job.
The US’s largest publicly listed exchange, Coinbase, is among multiple crypto companies to have advertised for a chief of staff recently.
Crypto industry recruiter Sam Wellalage says the role has become more popular as crypto companies mature and strengthen their management teams.
The chief of staff hiring spree comes amidst a recruitment drive in the crypto industry, with the sector advertising over 1,200 roles in recent months.
They hired for everything from meme and content creators to legal and compliance roles.
Successful chief of staff applicants will likely outrank them all.
Crypto ‘swiss army knife’
The primary duty of a chief of staff is to free up the CEO to do CEO stuff, like be the public face of the brand, Wellalage said.
Some businesses, particularly those in their early stages, tend to treat their chiefs of staff as glorified personal assistants who organise hiring, do diary management, and even fetch coffee.
As crypto companies mature, however, the role resembles more what it is in traditional businesses — a lynchpin of business strategy.
Coinbase’s ad, for instance, calls for someone to “serve as a swiss army knife for solving any problem.”
Plus, they need to prep CEO Brian Armstrong for key engagements, act as his stand-in if need be, and deal with issues before they reach him.
The pay is high, as it should be for a demanding strategic role. Coinbase’s ad offered a range of $206,000 to $242,500.
Applications for the Coinbase role are now closed.
Who’s hiring?
But fear not — at least 15 other firms are also looking to fill this role, across several hiring platforms and LinkedIn.
Among these is Ondo Finance, a cross-chain decentralised finance platform for tokenisation.
Ondo’s chief of staff will work closely with and report to CEO Nathan Allman.
They will make key management decisions and bridge the gap between different internal teams when leading on special projects, Ondo’s talent acquisition lead Josh Craven told DL News.
Be warned, though: competition for this role is fierce. Craven said Ondo has seen “an incredible amount of interest” in the job, with applications in the hundreds.
The successful candidate should be someone who combines a strong background in traditional finance with genuine enthusiasm for blockchain tech and a knowledge of the crypto landscape, he said.
The right candidate should be a self-starter who “doesn’t need to have their hand held,” Craven said.
The role is a new one for Ondo, which is making multiple executive hires.
Craven said it’s a sign of the industry’s evolution.
“It’s the industry maturing for sure, though it does depend a lot on the organisation,” Craven said.
Ondo’s team had the advantage of experienced execs, which many startups don’t, he added.
These businesses “might not be able to justify the cost, or maybe they don’t understand the value that hiring an experienced chief of staff can add to a growing organisation.”
Reach out to the author at joanna@dlnews.com