What a chief of staff does
A chief of staff runs the owner’s or CEO’s agenda so the company runs the way the owner intends. Not the calendar; the agenda. They hold the priorities, chase the follow-through across every department, write the brief before the meeting and the decisions after it, and bring the owner the three things that need a decision instead of the thirty that do not.
The title came from government and the military; in business it has spread from large companies to firms of fifty people, because the job it describes exists at every size.
Liaison does this part of the job, set up with you, for $629 a month. See how.
What the job actually is
- Holds the company’s priorities and keeps every team’s work pointed at them.
- Prepares the owner: the brief before each meeting, the numbers that matter this week, the question that will come up.
- Follows through: every decision becomes a task with an owner and a date, and the chief of staff is the one who notices when it slips.
- Runs the operating rhythm: the weekly leadership meeting, the monthly review, the quarterly plan.
- Takes the projects that cross departments and have no natural owner.
- Filters: what reaches the owner is what needs the owner.
Chief of staff, executive assistant, COO, operations manager
An executive assistant manages the executive’s time and logistics: calendar, travel, inbox, meetings. A chief of staff manages the executive’s agenda: what gets done, by whom, by when, across the company. A chief operating officer owns operations outright and makes the decisions; a chief of staff carries the owner’s decisions and makes sure they happen. An operations manager runs the day-to-day of a function or a site. The chief of staff is the only one of the four whose job is the whole company seen from the owner’s chair.
A chief of staff’s week
- Monday: the numbers from every system, pulled into one page, and the leadership meeting that runs off it.
- Through the week: decisions logged, owners chased, blockers raised with the owner before they become problems.
- Before every important meeting: the brief, the history, the ask.
- Friday: what happened, what moved, what did not, and what the owner needs to decide on Monday.
When a business is ready for one
The usual sign is that the owner is the only person who knows what is going on across the company, and the company is now too big for that. Follow-through slips because nobody owns the gap between departments. Meetings happen without preparation and end without decisions. The owner spends the day answering questions that a well-briefed person could have answered. Companies of twenty to two hundred people hire a chief of staff for exactly that; smaller companies feel the same gap and cannot justify the salary, which is a senior one.
What an AI chief of staff does instead
The routine half of the job is reading every system the company runs on, pulling the numbers into one brief, logging what was decided, and chasing what slipped. That half is what Liaison does: it reads the inbox, the calendar, the CRM, the books and the job or project system as one memory, writes the weekly brief from them, keeps the decision log and the follow-ups, and brings the owner what needs a decision. The judgment, the relationships and the conversations that change minds stay with a person. For a company that cannot yet hire a chief of staff, it is the part of the role that can be had for $629 a month, set up with you; for one that has hired one, it is the part of their week they get back.
The routine half of a chief of staff, set up with you, for $629 a month.
- Reads your inbox, calendar, CRM, books and project system as one memory.
- Writes the weekly brief, keeps the decision log and chases what slipped.
- Brings you what needs a decision, and only that.
On Professional we connect your tools, bring your data in and set up the first rules with you. Anything that moves money waits for your yes.
“Cut our month-end close from 4 days to 4 hours.” Marcus C., owner
$629 a month, or $500 a month on a 12-month term. Prefer to start on your own? Starter is $149 a month, self-serve, with a free trial first: 7 days, no card. More: AI chief of staff.
Works with the tools you already run
Liaison connects to these and more with access you grant, and reads them together with the rest of your business. Each page shows what it reads and does in that tool.
Questions
What does a chief of staff do?
Runs the owner’s or CEO’s agenda across the company: holds the priorities, prepares the briefs, logs the decisions, chases the follow-through, runs the operating rhythm, and filters what reaches the owner down to what needs the owner.
What is the difference between a chief of staff and an executive assistant?
An executive assistant manages the executive’s time and logistics. A chief of staff manages the executive’s agenda: what gets done across the company, by whom and by when.
Is a chief of staff the same as a COO?
No. A COO owns operations and makes the decisions. A chief of staff carries the owner’s decisions and makes sure they happen, and works across every function rather than owning one.
When should a small business hire a chief of staff?
When the owner is the only person who sees the whole company and the company has outgrown that: follow-through slips between departments, meetings end without decisions, and the owner’s day is spent answering questions. Many businesses reach that point before they can afford the hire.
What is an AI chief of staff?
Software that does the routine half of the role: reads every system the company runs on, writes the brief, keeps the decision log and the follow-ups, and brings the owner what needs a decision. Liaison does this inside the tools a business already runs: $629 a month on Professional, set up with you, or $149 a month self-serve.
More from Liaison
See it on your own business.
Thirty minutes with us, on your own tools. Bring the thing that eats your evenings and watch it get handled from your own inbox, calendar and books.
Professional is $629 a month and we set it up with you. Starter is $149 a month, self-serve, with the free trial first: 7 days, no card. Every plan is on the pricing page.