CoS vs COO Hiring Tool
In this issue: A free hiring tool for founders, a new Chiefly podcast episode with Adam Spector, Founder & CEO @ Chore, CoS vs COO sparknotes, and more!
Hello, and welcome to the Right Hand Talent newsletter! I’m Zaharo, and I write about all things Chief of Staff, talent, and career excellence.
In every post, you'll get a mix of CoS opportunities, insights on professional growth, industry trends, and sometimes just thoughts that keep me up at night about the future of work and leadership.
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🚨New Chiefly podcast episode!
I recently had an amazing chat with 4x founder Adam Spector, Founder & CEO @ Chore, and we deep dived into all things hiring process and hiring wins and mistakes. You can check out the episode below!
👩💻 I built a tool!
Lots of founders ask me "Should I hire a Chief of Staff or COO?", so I built a free tool to help them out! 😃
🔗 Link here! Just answer 7 simple questions to get a hiring recommendation! 🔥
𝗜𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗰 𝗶𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗦, 𝗶𝘁'𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝗹𝘀𝗼 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗮 𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘂𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻:
• Junior CoS (Sr. Manager)
• Mid-level CoS (Director/Sr. Director)
• Senior CoS (VP+)
The answers are weighted and you can choose more than 1 response for most questions, so you'll see how your responses influence the leveling.
ALSO: The hiring suggestion comes with a confidence score ✅ of low, medium, or high -- CoS roles are nuanced, so it can be tough to make a strong recommendation if the scope is all over the place.
𝗔𝗱𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗴𝗲𝘁:
• Typical salary ranges for the role + leveling
• Why your role likely isn't a COO (if CoS rec), or CoS (if COO rec)
Share this with a founder friend who's hiring! : )
I’ve posted about the differences between a CoS vs COO before (and had an awesome chat with Scott Gifis about it!) so I’ll add a brief cheat sheet here to highlight the key differences, and I’ll start with what a CoS *isn’t* because that’s sometimes easier to understand than what they *are*:
Chief of Staff
They’re a “Lone Wolf” — a hardcore IC with no direct reports (usually); at most, a solid line Deputy CoS report, or dotted line to their Principal’s EA. Bottom line is they aren’t running teams.
Not the DRI for org-wide objectives
Not answering to the board for performance
Not making independent decisions about company operations —> mostly just influencing
COO:
The exact opposite of a Lone Wolf — they own and runs multiple teams/departments and have significant P&L responsibility
DRI for org-wide OKRs and KPIs
Regular board interactions and performance accountability
Makes independent decisions about company operations
Has significant budgetary control and often manages the operational budget
By the time a company is ready to hire a COO, they need someone to dedicate themselves to building the machine that makes the company run, whereas a Chief of Staff would be the person more focused on special projects, strategic intiatives, and being a fore multiplier for their Principal.
Usually COOs need to have deep industry expertise as well — they’ve been there and done that, not just in their function, but in the exact vertical the company is operating in.
One other thing to consider: these roles are distinct even though there can be significant overlap in responsibilities. While CoS usually report into the Founder/CEO, they can also report to other CXOs, and COO is certainly one of them.
Other nuances about these roles
Something that's rarely discussed in the Chief of Staff vs COO dialogue is that there are *𝗺𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝘀* between the two. 𝑯𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒌𝒆𝒚 𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒊𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒍𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒍𝒔 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝑪𝒐𝑺 → 𝑪𝑶𝑶:
𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗲𝗳 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗳𝗳 (Director/Senior Director Level)
• Direct partnership with CEO/executive
• Strategic projects and executive initiatives
• ~No direct reports
• Focus on executive effectiveness and company-wide coordination
𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 (Director/Senior Director -- some CoS may be operating in this capacity already to some degree)
• Team management responsibility (~5-15 direct reports)
• Owns specific ops functions
• Budget responsibility
• Process design & implementation
𝗩𝗣 𝗼𝗳 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀
• Multiple team oversight
• P&L responsibility
• Strategic planning for operational excellence
• X-functional leadership
• ~20-50 people under management
𝗦𝗩𝗣 𝗼𝗳 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 (more common in larger orgs with more established hierarchies)
• Large-scale organizational design
• Enterprise-wide operational strategy
• Multiple VP direct reports
• ~100+ people under management
𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗲𝗳 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗢𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗲𝗿
• Company-wide operational oversight
• Direct partnership with CEO on business strategy
• Board reporting responsibilities
• Executive team leadership
• Full P&L accountability
• Organization-wide influence
So, it's quite the jump from CoS to COO even though it's a commonly cited career path. The key skill gaps I see (by no fault of the candidate) is softer leadership and people management skills, which are hard requirements of more senior ops roles. It's something that one can grow into, but likely requires coaching, a lot of trust and support for first-time managers, or some combo of the two.
Reporting to the board on a quarterly basis is also a skill, and I'm sure any COOs reading this post still remember their first time doing so : )
When to hire each role
The quick way to think about timing: hire a Chief of Staff when you need to multiply your effectiveness as a leader. Hire a COO when your operations need dedicated leadership and scaling.
A Chief of Staff can be an excellent hire at any stage (though at pre-seed you likely just need junior/early-career ops associates), while a COO hire typically makes more sense once you have significant operational complexity to manage (usually Series A or later, and all depending on the scale of the business as well). Sometimes the operational complexity demands both roles (Series B+) and I’ve seen multiple CoS at much bigger public companies.
I think bringing on either role too early or too late can be costly. A Chief of Staff without enough strategic work to do may end up as an overpaid EA (they’ll also be bored, underleveraged, and probably leave because they were sold something they didn’t really sign up for — reasons why I think EAs are distinct from strategic CoS). And a COO might be overkill if you need more of a roll-up-your-sleeves type who isn’t going to default to delegating to or hiring a team. The key is matching the hire to your current needs and growth trajectory, but it’s not always so obvious when a company is scaling.
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Until next time, Right Hand fam! 👋