Hi {{first_name|there}},
On Monday, a room in Kreuzberg filled up with Chiefs of Staff, and for more than a few of them it was the first time they'd been surrounded by people who do the same job.
🇩🇪 What we learned at Chief of Staff Connect Berlin
The theme for the day was From Force Multiplier to Builder. Going in, I wasn't sure how hard the room would push on it. The answer was harder than I expected. On the panels and in the hallway, the same idea kept coming up: the Chief of Staff seat is shifting from making things happen for other people to designing how the company runs.
Three threads stood out.
1. The org chart is flattening, and the seat is absorbing the gap
Monique Zytnik, a communication and marketing leader and IABC's EMENA Region Chair, summed up the new reality as a flatter org structure with fewer middle managers and more urgency than before. She mapped the Chief of Staff's core work against the skills of a senior communicator, and the overlap is hard to miss:
Aligning senior leadership and helping others make the decisions they need to make
Joining the dots across the business, with a wealth of context at your fingertips
Being a sparring partner who can give your principal honest, useful feedback
Working comfortably inside ambiguity
Setting the heartbeat of communication and investing in the relationships that build trust
Her other observation is the tension a lot of us are living with. Both professions get used at every level, from tactical implementer all the way to strategic advisor and builder, and the work is moving the role toward the second.
2. Context is the asset, so build with it
Maxi Bethge-Lewandowski said her biggest takeaway was finding new role models in Anna Ott and Marlen Heske, who talked about the role as leadership in its own right. She also named the shift better than I could have.
The Chief of Staff is moving from "helping everything happen" to actively building what happens next.
In practice that means building operating systems, redesigning how organizations work, turning AI from a pile of tools into real transformation, and creating clarity even when it's less comfortable than harmony. As she put it, "We sit on an absurd amount of context: strategy, people, finance, operations and all the invisible connections in between." The opportunity is to do more with it.
3. Investors have a view on this role
Swathi Selvaraj, Chief of Staff in the CEO's Office, called "What Investors Really Think About the CoS Role" her favorite session. Anna Ott and Imti Basharat walked through when a Chief of Staff genuinely creates value, how the role changes as a company scales, and what makes someone in the seat stand out. Swathi described the day as a room full of people "who understand just how broad (and sometimes undefined) the Chief of Staff role can be." That's the whole reason we do these.
📍 Next stops: New York, London and Singapore
If Berlin sounds like the room you've been missing, you have three more chances this year. Same theme, a room full of senior Chiefs of Staff, and everything Berlin taught us folded in.
New York · October 22 to 23
Two days in Times Square with senior Chiefs of Staff from across the world.
London · November 13
A full day with Chiefs of Staff from across the UK and Europe. Early Bird Tickets available until Oct 2.
Singapore · December 11
Our first Connect in Singapore, a full day at Andaz Singapore for Chiefs of Staff across Asia Pacific. Super Early Bird Tickets available until Oct 2.
In partnership with
AI Tools Chiefs of Staff Actually Use
We interviewed 20+ executives to find out which AI tools are actually earning a spot in their workflow — and we're sharing it live. Join our free monthly webinar for the tools, workflows, and demos Chief of Staff's are using to save hours every week.
Friday, September 25 · 11:00 AM PT / 2:00 PM ET
✍️ Hire what you're missing, not who you already are
Anna Ott was on the investor panel in Berlin, and she's since put her argument in writing. It's aimed at founders: hire a Chief of Staff to fill a specific gap, and resist the pull to hire a copy of yourself.
She breaks the decision into three dimensions (bandwidth, skill and personality) and she's candid about why so many first Chief of Staff hires falter. Usually the founder and the candidate are both doing this for the first time, with no shared picture of what success looks like. She also makes a case I'd like more people to hear: two to three years is the right tenure, as long as the person is growing toward their next role the whole time.
📅 Upcoming events
Next two weeks
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Coming up
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If you were in Berlin, thank you, and keep the feedback coming. If you weren't, I hope one of the next three rooms has your seat in it.
Scott
