Hiring a chief of staff to the CEO: what the role does, what drives pay – and how to find the right person

What a chief of staff is – and what the role is not

Before you hire a chief of staff, decide on a mandate, not a title. The label covers very different jobs, from an upgraded assistant to the person who runs the CEO’s key initiatives. This article covers the demanding version, the chief of staff to the CEO.

The title comes from the military and government; in companies the role is barely researched. A 2024 study calls it a growing quasi-executive role that strategic leadership research has “almost entirely ignored” (Zhou et al., 2024). Yet it is common: in an analysis of 563 listed companies across 19 European countries, about 30% had at least one chief of staff (Gigante, Rella and Cerri, 2026).

In Germany you will meet two established titles: Referent der Geschäftsführung (adviser to the managing directors) and Vorstandsreferent (adviser to a management board). Both are staff positions without direct authority to decide or instruct other departments (Duden Wirtschaft, 2016). The difference from a chief of staff lies in the mandate: a seat in executive meetings, access to every topic and a brief to push initiatives across functions.

What does a chief of staff do?

An exploratory study draws on 2,500 US LinkedIn profiles, a survey of 108 chiefs of staff and 13 interviews. Five tasks were rated highest for frequency and importance (Zhou et al., 2024). Chiefs of staff foster a positive culture and act as a sounding board for the CEO’s ideas. They track strategic initiatives, work with key leaders on strategy and implementation, and implement the CEO’s top initiatives. Day to day, that means:

• Sparring and decision papers. Structure options, test assumptions and bring in dissenting views before the CEO decides.
• Agenda and rhythm of the top team. Prepare executive and board meetings, record decisions and follow them up.
• Steering strategic initiatives. Lead two or three cross-functional initiatives, or steer the whole portfolio.
• Translation into the organisation. Turn decisions at the top into plans, communication and next steps.
• Information flow. Filter and condense signals from the organisation and pass them on unvarnished.

What the role rarely involves is just as telling. Formal people management is rare; firing and external representation were among the lowest-rated tasks; only 4% of US profiles came from an executive assistant role (19.6% in the survey). The authors conclude that the job needs more big-picture thinking than an assistant role and more attention to detail than, say, a COO. Dan Ciampa names five functions in Harvard Business Review: air traffic controller, integrator, communicator, honest broker and truth teller, and confidant (as summarised by Zhou et al., 2024).

When should a company hire a chief of staff?

There is no size threshold. In the US LinkedIn data, 18.1% of chiefs of staff worked in organisations with fewer than 25 employees and 16.7% in ones with 5,000 or more (Zhou et al., 2024). What matters is the bottleneck: the leader’s agenda outgrows their time. In the same study’s survey, 42.6% reported a recent CEO change, which shows a pattern, not a cause. Typical triggers, in our experience:

• A new CEO with a new agenda. The first months shape strategy, team and culture; someone must hold the initiatives together.
• Transformation or integration. Several cross-functional programmes run at once and must be coordinated on the CEO’s behalf.
• A value creation plan after an acquisition. In private-equity-owned companies, management must deliver fixed milestones while running the business.
• A growing top team. More direct reports, more coordination, less time for priorities.

Chief of staff archetypes: matching the profile to the mandate

Dan Ciampa distinguishes an administrative, a project-focused and a senior version; only the senior one typically reports directly to the CEO or sits on the executive team. Before any search, he advises, be clear which specific problem the position should solve (Dunham, 2026). For the senior version we work with three archetypes. One should dominate, or the job becomes a catch-all for whatever nobody else picks up.

Profile and background: who to look for

Chiefs of staff are experienced generalists. In the European analysis, more than half had an economics or finance background and about 28% came from consulting (Gigante, Rella and Cerri, 2026). Average career seniority was over 15 years. In Zhou et al.’s survey and interviews, the two strongest success themes were high conscientiousness and the ability to switch between the big picture and tactical detail.

• Judgement. Knows which three topics the CEO needs this week, and says which ones they don’t.
• Structure and precision. Thinks in options and consequences, yet follows up every open point.
• Influence without authority. Wins over function heads who outrank them, through preparation and reliability.
• Discretion and low ego. Works behind the scenes and keeps confidences.
• Willingness to contradict. Puts uncomfortable facts on the table; leaders often misjudge themselves, and a chief of staff is one of the few who can say so.

Former consultants bring much of this: structure, pace and experience with boards. What consulting rarely trains is leading without a client engagement behind you and staying with execution for years. Test both directly. More in our article on hiring former top-tier consultants.

Chief of staff salary: what drives pay

We found no robust, publicly citable salary data for chiefs of staff in Germany. The figures online do not disclose their data basis and differ widely, so we quote none. A 2023 survey of 292 Chief of Staff Association members shows what goes with higher pay: organisation size, education and experience. Reporting to the CEO is not among them: chiefs of staff to a COO or another C-suite member earned most, probably, the Association suggests, because only large organisations have such roles (Chief of Staff Association, 2023). In negotiations, these matter most in our experience:

• Grading and scope. At what level is the role graded, does it sit in executive meetings, and how large is the remit it supports?
• Organisation size and complexity. Group, mid-sized company or scale-up; one country or many.
• Archetype and mandate. An implementer accountable for a value creation plan is valued differently from an operator.
• Where the candidate comes from. People leaving consulting or a leadership role compare against their current package.
• Variable pay and the next step. Bonus, in private equity possibly an equity stake, and the next role belong in one conversation.

Tenure and next steps: a role with an end date

For many people the role is a stage, not a destination. In the European analysis, chiefs of staff stayed around two to three years (Gigante, Rella and Cerri, 2026). According to the Chief of Staff Association, it has long been seen as transitional, lasting “a few years at most” before a move into leadership, most often in operations or strategy. In its survey, 35% wanted to be career chiefs of staff, and 17% did not. Discuss the next step during selection.

How to search for and assess a chief of staff

Because the role depends on the CEO’s trust, many appointments start internally. Both routes are common: 59% of the Association’s respondents had been promoted internally, against 38.1% in Zhou et al.’s US LinkedIn data. External searches usually run discreetly, as the role sees everything on the leader’s desk. We recommend this sequence:

1. Write down the mandate. Which problem does the role solve, which archetype dominates, and how will you judge success after a year?
2. Settle the authority up front. The CEO tells the top team what the chief of staff speaks for. Zhou et al. suggest that success may hinge on this explicit grant of authority.
3. Map the market. Look beyond active job-seekers to everyone who fits, inside and outside; talent mapping shows how.
4. Interview in a structured way. The same questions and rating anchors for everyone. In a re-analysis of meta-analyses, structured interviews predicted later job performance far better than unstructured ones (mean validity 0.42 versus 0.19), while years of prior experience barely did (0.07) (Sackett et al., 2022).
5. Set a real task. A decision paper on a real, anonymised company topic, discussed with the CEO.
6. Take references on influence. With the candidate’s consent, ask former managers and peers how the person achieved results without formal authority.
7. Let the CEO decide. After at least two in-depth conversations, because the role does not work without trust.