Chief of Staff

Incandescent is a strategy and advisory firm that partners with leaders and organizations to create, build, and run high-performing enterprises. Our Systems Change platform works with leading foundations, nonprofits, and mission-driven organizations to shape and implement strategies for social impact at a systems level.

Founded in 2013, we've been building a small team, slowly and carefully. Each team member plays an integral part in driving Incandescent’s success.

We're looking for a Chief of Staff who will serve as the operational architect of our Systems Change platform. This person will partner directly with Shanti Nayak, the platform's leader and an Incandescent partner, to drive the engine that makes everything else possible: strategy execution, business development, team cohesion, financial health, and the systems and routines that allow a small, ambitious team to punch well above its weight.

The platform is at an inflection point. We are building for scale, expanding into climate as a core pillar, and investing in the operational infrastructure and team development required to sustain that growth. This is a formative moment. We are looking for someone who is energized by that, finds deep satisfaction in creating conditions for others to do their best work, and who brings an entrepreneurial mindset to everything they do.

The role spans platform operations, business development infrastructure, and team development, as well as content and IP. You will also have opportunities to contribute to client engagements, building context and craft alongside the advisory team. You will leverage AI-powered tools to create operating leverage for the platform, so that your time and energy are directed toward the strategic, relational, and creative work the platform needs most.

What You'll Do

Run the platform's operating rhythm. Own meeting cadences, agenda design, goal-tracking, quarterly synthesis, and the connective tissue that holds the work together. Drive execution against annual and quarterly goals. Manage platform economics: utilization tracking, margin analysis, staffing decisions, and the financial picture that informs strategic tradeoffs.

Build the business development engine. Design and run the BD systems that fuel growth: outreach disciplines, pipeline tracking, relationship management, and the routines that turn networks into opportunities. Create tools, materials, and processes that support BD across the team.

Strengthen the team. Play a central role in building the teamwork of the platform by fostering collaboration, creating shared learning opportunities, and ensuring the team is intentional about talent development. Facilitate knowledge-sharing across engagements so that we come together as greater than the sum of our parts.

Shape content and voice. Coordinate the platform's intellectual property and content agenda: article publication, event planning, and ensuring that insights from client work are captured and shared externally.

Lean into advisory work. Contribute to client engagements alongside the advisory team by joining interviews, producing synthesis, developing materials, and supporting delivery. This builds context across the platform's portfolio and sharpens your own strategic craft.

Architect AI-powered leverage. Build and manage AI-powered systems for meeting preparation, research synthesis, workflow automation, and more. Stay at the frontier of how AI can reshape platform operations and bring new tools and approaches to the team.

• You are entrepreneurial, with a builder's mindset. You see gaps and fill them. You design systems rather than just executing within them. You take ownership of problems before being asked and are energized by the messy, creative work of building something that doesn't exist yet.

• You are deeply relational and people-oriented. You invest in relationships naturally, read group dynamics well, and care about creating environments where people thrive.

• You are organized, disciplined, and detail-oriented. You hold many threads simultaneously without dropping them. You have strong follow-through.

• You are a strong communicator. You can synthesize complexity clearly and produce materials that are sharp and client-ready, in writing and in conversation.

• You are comfortable with financial and quantitative work: reading P&Ls, modeling utilization, thinking about margins and pricing.

• You are an eager and creative adopter of AI. You don't need to be a technologist, but you are genuinely excited about how AI can reshape how small teams operate.

• You are drawn to the "behind the scenes." You find satisfaction in enabling others to succeed and are comfortable with work that is more often felt than seen.

• You are curious about what it means to enable and fuel impact-focused work across a range of spaces, from democracy to climate to philanthropy broadly.

This role is best suited for someone with a meaningful stretch of professional experience, likely 5–10 years, who is ready to step into a position with real scope and ownership. Prior experience in strategy consulting, social sector advisory, mission-driven operations, or entrepreneurial environments (e.g., building or scaling a startup, social enterprise, or new venture) would be most relevant, but we are open to other backgrounds that translate into impact in this context.

We seek candidates who are excited to put their fingerprints on this role and who see it as a platform for meaningful growth, whether that leads to a more senior platform role, an advisory path, or something else we shape together.

Salary for this position is commensurate with experience. Total compensation (base salary + yearly bonus) typically ranges between $120,000 and $150,000 of which approximately 15% is variable compensation. That range could be higher for exceptional candidates, further along in their career.

Working alongside a close-knit, high-performing team, you'll have real ownership of our distinctive social impact practice during a moment of genuine momentum. You will partner directly with a senior firm leader, have unusual autonomy, and be exposed to sophisticated strategy, culture, and talent work across democracy, climate, and philanthropy. We’re exceptionally focused on how work gets done, and are deeply committed to excellence in both results and in the thoughtfulness and intentionality we each bring to our daily work.