Structure your Office of the CEO

I talked to 50+ Office of the CEO (OCEO) professionals and found out 2 standard structures for the CEO’s executive office.

If the OCEO team is small, i.e. just a Chief of Staff and an Executive Assistant, then they both typically report directly to the CEO.

Here’s why: having the Executive Assistant report to the Chief of Staff is too complicated. It doesn’t let the Chief of Staff fly free to work on special projects. Instead, they have to manage someone which takes away their focus.

But if the CEO Office team is larger, then the Executive Assistant can report into the Chief of Staff. Ultimately, this structure helps the CEO reduce the number of direct reports.

How it works: the Executive Assistant can assume the Head of Administration title and have multiple Executive Assistants, Administrative Assistants and/or Personal Assistants underneath them.

And the Chief of Staff can have the senior Executive Assistant, Deputy Chief of Staff, Communications Director and other specialized Executive Directors underneath them. These can include a Strategy Manager, Innovation Manager, Events Manager, and Chief Pilot.

Remember, the fewer people in the Office of the CEO, the better. This streamlines workflow and reduces the complexity of information sharing across resources.

So there you have it - two different org charts that are designed depending on the total size of the Office of the CEO team.

What structure do you use in your Office of the CEO? Vote in my poll below:

Events

Join me in my upcoming AMA (Ask Me Anything) today Wednesday, January 31, 2024 at 11am ET / 8am PT / 4p GMT.

Register for my AMA here and share the event with your network. Watch the replay at the same link here.

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 1,000+ readers of this newsletter or need help hiring your next Chief of Staff, simply reply to this email.

Chief of Staff, Gold House, Los Angeles, CA or New York, NY

Chief of Staff, Intel, Santa Clara, CA

Chief of Staff, TCW Group, Los Angeles, CA

Chief of Staff, Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, St. Paul, MN

Associate Chief of Staff, Goldman Sachs, Dallas, TX

Deputy Chief of Staff & Strategic Initiatives Manager, Harvard University, Cambridge, M

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 structure their Office of the CEO, please forward it to them.

And if someone forwarded this newsletter to you, please don't leave without hitting that Subscribe button now.

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 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.