What are some of the similarities and differences between the Chief of Staff, Business Operations, and VC Platform roles?

Having worked in each of these roles, I’ll start with an overview of each role, share my personal experience, and then explore the commonalities between these roles.

Business Operations

Business Operations roles tend to focus on investments a company makes for the future. The team generally functions around the following areas:

• Strategy and analytics - qualitative and quantitative analysis of data to generate plans to increase revenue or reduce costs
  • Note: consumer-facing tech companies generally focus more on being data-driven, which means lots of SQL to understand the data to then make decisions
  • Example: analyzing user data to identify the lowest-performing markets to exit the business
• Program management - owning a portfolio of transformation-type projects and driving them forward and conducting reporting
  • This may involve a lot of project management, especially if there are no dedicated project managers and the initiative spans across functions
  • Example: modernizing client onboarding for a fintech across all areas such as KYC, user experience, and data storage (each is its own area that rolls up into the program)
• Special projects - this is the innovation portion involved in spinning up new pilots, products, and programs
  • The purpose here is to move fast and break things in a contained manner while the core business keeps moving
  • Example: integrating ChatGPT into an existing product

In my role at BNY Mellon on the digital partnerships and investments team, I functioned as an advisor to every business line across the bank. Separately, my team also executed principal investments for the company, serving as the corporate venture arm. Some projects I worked on included conducting a study on tokenization of digital assets (strategy and analytics), advising the business units on new fintech vendors to utilize (program management), and setting up an accelerator program (special projects).

Chief of Staff

While Business Operations usually involves a team, the Chief of Staff is a single person responsible for keeping order in the organization around:

• Serving as the “glue” to the organization - making sure each function is communicating with each other and ensuring the trickle-down of communication from the CEO
  • The Chief of Staff is there to break down silos. They are like the traffic controller when it comes to communications
  • Example: sending out enterprise-wide communications and checking in with each function to make sure they are following the messages
• Supporting the principal (the person the Chief of Staff supports) in every way - oftentimes, this means being the “Chief of Stuffs”, which can be any task
  • This means this person has to both be able to think strategically while also zooming in to do something tactically and then zooming back out again
  • Example: conducting annual budgeting for the team and then getting asked by the EA on a logistical item for a team gathering
• Owning processes across the organization - establishing routines and culture across the board
  • Serving as not on the “glue” to the organization, but also the “oil” to make sure it runs smoothly
  • Example: These involve both concrete measures (such as OKRs) and more “soft” areas like team values

I was previously the Chief of Staff for the Crypto team at Cross River, supporting the Head of Crypto. I spent my time working with the function leads to prepare for their business review meetings (ensuring communication), preparing my principal for meetings (supporting the principal), and building processes such as implementing Coda, a tool similar to Notion, to house everything (owning processes).

VC Platform

The VC Platform person is the product manager for the venture capital firm. The person/function focuses on:

• Portfolio development - supporting the portfolio companies post-investment
  • This includes hiring, business development, fundraising, marketing & pr, and technology
  • Example: introducing a portfolio company to later-stage investors to discuss their next round of fundraising
• Ecosystem management - building relationships with service providers, community organizations, and other VCs
  • These activities strengthen the fund’s social graph to then provide more offerings for the portfolio companies
  • Example: building a list of preferred vendors and negotiating discounts with them
• Marketing and events - handling social media, marketing newsletters, and running events
  • This is a mix of content creation and event planning to spearhead the external-facing parts of the role
  • Example: organizing an annual summit by finding a venue, securing sponsors, inviting guests, etc.