ROLE

The Chief of Staff will act as a key strategic partner to the CEO and the Executive team, ensuring organizational alignment, operational effectiveness, and seamless internal communication. This role supports organizational leadership, facilitates board communications, and oversees the planning and execution of critical organizational priorities. As a driver of organizational effectiveness, the Chief of Staff plays a pivotal role in fostering an environment of trust, transparency, and impact.  Given the global nature of Luminate’s work, this role requires a strong commitment to equity and inclusion, and a way of working that actively seeks to understand and incorporate the lived realities, operating contexts, and constraints of colleagues across regions.  

Primary System focus

• CEO Office & Executive Leadership system: Drive alignment between the CEO, Executive Team, and Board, ensuring decisions are informed, tracked and translated into clear actions across the organisation.

• Organisation strategy and performance system: Support the CEO in connecting strategic goals with operational delivery.  Shape priorities, manage cadence and enable evidence-based decision-making across leadership and teams.

Secondary Systems focus

• Leadership and decision-making system: Design and maintain effective processes, leadership meeting structures, and follow-up mechanisms that reinforce accountability and strategic focus. Ensure organisational priorities and values, including: equity, inclusion, and respect for diverse operating contexts, are embedded in how we operate.

• Internal communications and engagement system: Ensure transparent and consistent internal communication that connects leadership intent to staff understanding and engagement, promoting trust and alignment.

HOW YOU CREATE CHANGE: LEVERAGE POINTS

Your role shifts systems through:

• Alignment: Ensure the CEO’s strategic intent, priorities, and decisions are well-understood and consistently applied across leadership and teams.

• Connectivity: Act as a bridge between CEO, Executive Team, Leadership Team, and staff, promoting transparency and strengthening information flow and trust.

• Execution discipline: Embed structured rhythms for leadership decision-making, initiative tracking, and performance follow-up to ensure accountability and timely delivery. 

• Cultural stewardship: Model and reinforce values of openness, collaboration, and integrity to ensure the organisational values are reflected in everyday practice.

• Equitable design: Design and steward leadership processes, decision-making forums, and operating rhythms in ways that recognise power dynamics, amplify diverse perspectives, and work effectively across geographies and contexts.

MENTAL MODELS WE VALUE

• Systems thinking: Understand how decisions, behaviours, and processes interconnect across the organisation.  Recognise patterns, dependencies, and leverage points that strengthen alignment between strategy, people, and operations.

• Enabling leadership: Empower others to perform at their best by clarifying intent, removing barriers, and creating conditions for shared accountability.  Leading not through hierarchy, but through listening and creating space for others’ expertise.

• Adaptive mindset: Balance long-term strategic intent with agility and responsiveness to change.  Anticipate emerging risks or opportunities and adjust course without losing sight of the bigger picture.

• Inclusive decision-making: Value clarity, transparency, and follow-through in decision-making, while ensuring that decisions are informed by diverse perspectives and an understanding of different regional and functional contexts.  Support movement from discussion to decision in a way that builds trust and shared ownership.

• Learning orientation: Promote reflection and continuous improvement.  Seek feedback, distil learning from successes and setbacks, and embed those lessons into Luminate’s ways of working.

• Power awareness: Maintain an active awareness of how power, proximity to leadership, and location shape influence.  Use access intentionally to surface perspectives that may otherwise be sidelined, and to create fairer outcomes.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Strategic support to the CEO

• Ensure the CEO has the information, insights, and support needed to lead effectively.

• Provide strategic input on organisational priorities and ensure alignment with the philanthropy’s mission and goals.

• Manage and prioritize the CEO's involvement in organisational and external initiatives.

• Take ownership of high-priority projects or analysis, as required / delegated by the CEO.

Strategic alignment and planning

• Collaborate with the CEO and the Executive team to translate high-level Luminate objectives into actionable plans and outcomes.

• Drive alignment on strategy and priorities across departments and regions, ensuring that plans and decisions are informed by the realities of different operating contexts.

• Identify cross-cutting operational roadblocks, inefficiencies, and risks; and surface these to inform strategic planning and executive decision-making.

Operational leadership and decision-making

• Build and manage the operating rhythm of the executive leadership team. 

• Plan and facilitate leadership team meetings. Set agendas focused on critical priorities, and establish decision-making frameworks.

• Implement processes that support decision-making, including documenting decisions, monitoring follow-through, and ensuring accountability for execution.

Internal communications

• Lead and manage Luminate internal communications, including partnering with the CEO on her internal communications, to ensure clarity, consistency, and alignment around priorities, decisions, and updates.

• Develop internal communication strategies that foster transparency, alignment, and engagement across Luminate, including strengthening two-way communication channels between leadership and staff.

• Ensure internal communications are accessible, culturally aware, and responsive to staff working across different geographies and time zones.

Board engagement and support

• Partner with the Executive Team to shape board meeting agendas, focusing on strategic discussions and decision-making.

• Draft and oversee board communications, including pre-reads, meeting materials, and follow-up summaries, in collaboration with the CEO, General Counsel, and CEO’s Executive Assistant

• Work with the CEO’s Executive Assistant to ensure seamless logistics for board meetings and events.

• Support the CEO in maintaining and strengthening relationships with board members, ensuring ongoing communication and alignment outside of formal meetings.

DAY-TO-DAY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Prepare the CEO for daily priorities: briefs, decisions, meetings, and follow-ups.

• Draft, edit, and review communications from the CEO to staff and Board.

• Manage the rhythm of Executive Team and leadership meetings: agenda design, action-tracking, decision-logging.

• Oversee board prep in collaboration with CEO’s EA and General Counsel.

• Act as first point of escalation for cross-functional coordination issues, ensuring resolution or alignment before they reach the CEO.

• Provide coaching and guidance to operations team members on execution discipline.

SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE & EXPERTISE

Strategic thinker with execution skills

• Demonstrated ability to think strategically about complex problems while also identifying the tactical steps needed to achieve the big-picture goals.

• Able to translate strategy into execution, managing projects and driving them to completion.

• Demonstrated adaptive mindset, balancing long-term strategic plans with the flexibility to respond to emerging needs or urgent issues.

 Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills

• Demonstrated ability to work inclusively across cultures, geographies, and power differences, with sensitivity to how context shapes interpretation, engagement, and decision-making.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with experience drafting high-quality communications on behalf of senior leaders (e.g. internal memos, board updates). 

• Able to communicate effectively with diverse stakeholders and tailor messaging to different audiences.

• Outstanding interpersonal skills with the ability to build relationships and trust at all levels of the organisation.

Organisational and analytical strength

• Exceptional organisational skills, capable of juggling multiple priorities and projects without dropping details.

• Strong analytical mindset; comfortable handling data and information to inform decision-making.

• Adept at preparing briefs, presentations, and reports that distil complex information into clear insights and recommendations.

Influence and leadership

• Proven ability to lead through influence rather than authority, driving outcomes by persuading and coordinating others, even without direct line management.

• High degree of emotional intelligence, diplomacy, and professionalism, especially when handling sensitive information or mediating between senior stakeholders.

• Sound judgement in decision-making, in line with Luminate’s values, and ability to apply judgment on when to escalate issues.

Experience and domain knowledge

• Significant experience (ideally 5+ years) in roles such as strategic planning, operations, management consulting, or in a Chief of Staff or similar advisory capacity to senior leadership.

• Experience in the philanthropy, non-profit, or social impact sector is a plus.

• A track record of working in global or geographically distributed organisations is highly desirable, including experience working closely with colleagues or partners based in the Global South.  Deep familiarity with non-UK operating contexts (whether through lived experience, extended professional experience, or long-term partnerships) is strongly valued.

• A relevant postgraduate qualification (e.g. MBA) is beneficial but not mandatory if balanced by substantial practical experience.

REPORTING & RELATIONSHIPS

Reports to: CEO

Manages: None (no formal line management responsibilities).

Works closely with: CEO’s Executive Assistant; Executive Leadership Team members; Board Members; People Director; and other key stakeholders across the organisation.

TRAVEL

The role is based in one of Luminate’s regional hubs, with flexibility for hybrid working. This role involves some travel (approximately 3-4 trips per year) and occasional irregular hours to accommodate staff across different time zones.