Chief of staff (Remote)
Somewhere
🇿🇦 Hirezar Summary for South African Applicants
This fully remote full time position at Somewhere is open to applicants from South Africa. This role is suited for lead-level professionals. As a remote position, you can work from anywhere in South Africa — whether you're based in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, or a smaller town.
Job Description
Chief of Staff — Job Description
A performance marketing holding company that builds, scales, and operates a portfolio of consumer brands in eCommerce and DTC is seeking a Chief of Staff. The company runs paid media at scale — ads drive leads, leads convert through a partner call center network, and revenue is optimized across every part of the funnel. The business is cash-flow positive, bootstrapped, and growing quickly.
Why This Role Exists
We are hiring a Chief of Staff to be the CEO's strategic right hand — someone who can absorb context quickly, exercise sound judgment independently, and get things done without being chased. You will sit at the center of the company, reduce the CEO's cognitive load, and ensure nothing important falls through the cracks in a fast-moving, fully remote, globally distributed environment.
This role will evolve every 3–6 months as the company scales. The person who joins now will have the opportunity to grow into different functional leadership roles as the business expands into new verticals and business units.
This role is60% strategic execution and 40% operational excellence.
What You'll Own
CEO Force Multiplier
Be the CEO's most trusted operator. Own follow-through on every commitment, request, and decision made in leadership conversations — so the CEO can stop being his own follow-up engine.
Translate the CEO's thinking into structured briefs, project plans, and decision memos. If the CEO says “we should do X,” you make X happen — with owners, timelines, and accountability built in.
Prepare the CEO for high-stakes conversations such as partner meetings, hiring decisions, and performance reviews. Surface the information he needs in the format he can act on.
Strategic Project Ownership
Own high-impact initiatives from zero to completion — including business development outreach, call center partner evaluation, vendor negotiations, new product launches, and strategic partnerships.
Lead special projects that don't fit neatly into one department. These are often the highest-leverage items in the company and the ones most likely to fall through the cracks without a clear owner.
Research, scope, and build business cases for new initiatives before the CEO needs to weigh in.
Operating Rhythm & Visibility
Design and own the company's operating cadence: weekly leadership reviews, OKR check-ins, cross-functional syncs, and reporting standards.
Build and maintain a single source of truth for active priorities, project status, risks, and open requests — visible to the CEO at all times without him needing to chase anyone.
Surface risks and blockers proactively. If something is going to miss a deadline or go off track, the CEO should hear it from you first.
Cross-Functional Coordination
Act as the connective tissue between departments. Facilitate decisions that cross departmental lines and ensure handoffs are clean so nothing gets buried in Slack.
Support hiring by helping define roles, coordinating recruiter relationships, running screening stages, and owning the onboarding experience for new hires.
Manage vendor and contractor relationships — brief them, hold them accountable to deadlines, and escalate when output doesn't meet expectations.
Your First 90 Days
Days 1–30: Learn the machine
Shadow every department. Understand the business. Map active projects, identify who actually owns what, and surface the top five issues that may not yet be visible to the CEO.
Days 31–60: Take the load off
Own the weekly leadership report. Take over daily triage and request routing. Run the first cross-functional OKR check-in without the CEO in the room. Close at least one project that has been stalled.
Days 61–90: Operate independently
The CEO should be able to go offline for 48 hours and trust that nothing important will slip. You are fielding escalations, making judgment calls, and briefing him with structured summaries rather than raw message threads. The operating cadence is built and the team is using it.
What To Expect
Daily close partnership with the CEO — this is a high-contact, high-trust role.
A fast-moving, written-first environment where Telegram is the primary communication tool. Threads move quickly, context can get buried, and your job is to make sure nothing important disappears.
A globally distributed team across 10+ countries and time zones where clear written communication is essential.
Broad scope from day one — this role touches every part of the business.
A genuine path to grow into VP Operations, General Manager, or vertical leadership roles as the company scales.
This role isnot a traditional 9-to-5 position.Early-stage startup intensity is real, especially in the first 90 days.
You're a Good Fit If You
* Have a background in management consulting, startup operations, or growth-stage company operations (3–5 years)
Have a background in management consulting, startup operations, or growth-stage company operations (3–5 years)
* Ha
Tips for South African Applicants
Timezone Advantage
South Africa (SAST, UTC+2) overlaps well with European business hours and has a few hours of overlap with US East Coast. Mention your timezone flexibility in your application.
Salary in Context
Even without a listed salary, international remote roles typically pay 2-3x more than equivalent local positions in South Africa due to the exchange rate advantage.
Application Tips
Tailor your CV to international standards — use a clean format, highlight remote work experience, and include your English proficiency. Many SA applicants succeed by emphasising their strong work ethic and cultural adaptability.
Load Shedding Preparedness
If you're applying for a remote role, having a backup power solution (UPS, inverter, or generator) and mobile data as a backup internet connection shows employers you're prepared for South Africa's infrastructure challenges.
About Somewhere
Somewhere is a company in the Recruitment & Staffing industry that hires remote workers from South Africa. They currently have 614 open positions on Hirezar. View all Somewhere jobs →