Hello and welcome to the 46 new readers of the Office of the CEO newsletter! I’m Mackenzie, and I write about all things Chief of Staff, Executive Operations and the CEO Office.

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How mature is your Office of the CEO?

A few weeks ago, I wrote how to broadly assess your Office of the CEO. Here’s the answer: you can look through the 3 simple lenses of People, Process and Technology to see how your CEO Office is functioning today.

But many newsletter audience members have approached me and asked for a more rigorous methodology to look at the current state of their executive office. So I decided it’s time to get into the nitty gritty of each variable that we believe drives the performance a world-class Office of the CEO.

So I’m pleased to report that my 56-factor Cedar Office of the CEO Maturity Model is hot off the presses and ready for your review.

Introducing the Office of the CEO Maturity Model

Whether you are a CEO, Executive Assistant or Chief of Staff, you can use this maturity model to assess your executive office at a granular level. It starts to build a common language and nomenclature to speak about the exact elements that underpin your Office of the CEO. And I’d love your feedback on this first pass: link here to review the publicly available Google Sheets, where you can leave comments.

More about the maturity model. There are 5 Areas (Strategy, Planning, Team, Enablement and Execution) broken down into 15 Functions and 56 Elements. We cover diverse factors, including Office of the CEO vision, roles, hiring, training, ROI, playbooks, and board management. I’ve meant to be MECE - mutually exclusive and comprehensively exhaustive - but please let me know if I’ve missed anything.

Here’s how you use the model. Complete an honest review of your current state CEO Office. For each element, ask yourself: Are you Level 0 - Undefined or L5 - Optimized when it comes to CEO Communications, Executive Team Management, Board Management and more. Then, define what actions to take to develop your Office of the CEO to achieve world-class status. When you are firing on all Level 5’s across multiple factors, you’ll know you’ve made it.

PS The model holds for most executive offices, including the Office of the President, Office of the Managing partner, Office of the COO, and more. You’ll just need to tweak the language a bit.

So, my Office of the CEO community, what did you think? In the spirit of continuous feedback, send me a note or leave a comment on the model itself. I’d love to hear your feedback as I prepare an associated, rigorous research survey that looks at the maturity levels of CEO Offices across different industries, sectors and entity types.

Upcoming Event

Office of the CEO Happy Hour series, presented by Mackenzie and the Cedar team.

​I'm excited to host a New York spring happy hour for my Office of the CEO community tomorrow, Thursday, May 2, 2024. RSVP to secure your spot today. We’re counting 59 RSVPs at the moment.

​Who should attend? ​Founders, CEOs, COOs, Executive Assistants, Chiefs of Staff, aspiring Chiefs of Staff, Executive Communications professionals and Executive Operations professionals are all welcome.

​Why come to my happy hour? ​You’ll be able to network with like-minded Office of the CEO professionals. But also it wouldn’t be a Cedar event without some sort of thought provoking and entertaining programming from my team. And I’m making fresh salsa. See you there!

Secure your spot: Tomorrow, Thursday, May 2 5-7p ET at a private residence in Manhattan (Chelsea). RSVP.

Share this event with a friend or colleague who’d like to join.

Chief of Staff Jobs

Welcome to our Chief of Staff job board. If you have a Chief of Staff job you’d like shared to 2,000+ readers of this newsletter or need hands-on recruiting help to hire your Chief of Staff, reply to this email.

Chief of Staff - Transaction & Excellence Integration Team, BCG, Boston, MA, Consulting, Corporate

Chief of Staff - Mercedes-Benz High Power Charging, Mercedes Benz, New York, NY, Finance, Profit

Chief of Staff to President and GM of Life Sciences, Ecosystem and Public Sector, Datavant, Remote, Tech, Startup

Chief of Staff and Strategy, Uncommon Schools, New York, NY, Non-Profit

Chief of Staff to CCMO, Freshworks, Bellvue, WA, Tech, Corporate

Chief of Staff to the CTO, WorldQuant, Austin, TX, Finance, Corporate

Chief of Staff, Rex, Austin, TX, Tech, Startup

Help Us Grow

Our mission is to impact 1,000,000 leaders. If this newsletter would help someone in your network learn more about how to assess the maturity of their Office of the CEO, please forward it to them.

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Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for next week’s edition.

Until next week,

Mackenzie

Mackenzie Lee | Founder & CEO
M: 650.283.4152 | E: [email protected]
New York City, NY
www.CedarChief.com

At Cedar, we turn executives into fast and fearless leaders.

Thanks to technology, changing markets, and demanding investors, the C-suite job is tougher than ever. We help executives find freedom from blockers and busywork.

Our mission is to help 1 million CEOs and their C-suite teams let go and do more of the things that matter. We help you hire a Chief of Staff, build an Office of the CEO, and implement C-suite operating systems.

On average our clients see a 25% meeting reduction, 20% strategic sales increase, and 2x speed-to-execution in their first 90 days with us. Data is continuously analyzed to improve performance and accelerate growth.