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For aspiring CoS talents and generalists, join CoS School to kick start your career to thrive and triumph in the world that urgently needs more generalists!
Inaugural Cohort Starts in Mid-Late March 2023
For startups looking for a highly trained CoS, partner up with us and register your interest now!
The role of generalists has never been more instrumental in the scaling process of startups and innovative enterprises. More so, the role of a Chief of Staff has taken prominence in the tech sector, bridging between all functional teams and highly technical talents. Devoted to providing an avenue to advance talents with attainable generalist skill sets, Ignition Chamber Academy introduces the Chief of Staff (CoS) School - one of a kind global talent and recruitment developmental program - aiming to solve both the supply and demand of the talent gap that has long existed in the global startup ecosystem. Aligned with our mission of nurturing startup resilience and intelligence, we set to uplift the appreciation of generalists’ roles and their contributions to high-growth startups and innovative enterprises through Ignition Chamber’s CoS School.
CoS is a rapidly evolving position in the job market, shaped and iterated by talent movements and innovative enterprises, especially the tech startup sector. We’d like to anchor down our understanding based on the dozens of surveys and conversations with CoSs around the world.
A CoS is the right-hand to the Founder/CEO (or, any hiring manager the CoS directly reports to). He or she is fundamentally a servant leader that manages information flow and communications, align strategic goals within the organization and operates across functional units for cross-collaboration strategic efforts. When in need, a CoS serves as a temporary stop-gap person to a specific business function before the hire is filled. CoS is a strategic generalist.
CoSs are (Also offers an explanation as to why they are critical and key to the success of any scaling startup operations):
Key attributes and characteristics:
Although they may rise from these functional roles CoSs are NOT:
Our CoS School consists of a 5-week Course & Training Core and a 3-month Immersive Hands-on as an Acting CoS.
Whether you’ve heard of the Chief of Staff role or not, this first will orient you to the overarching commonalities of the Chief of Staff role. We’ll start with a general description of the role and then dive into how the role differs across different size organizations. Meet Chiefs of Staff who are in the role now and ask any questions you might have about the roles and responsibilities of these generalists!
After learning more about the Chief of Staff role, we’ll dive into how to be successful in your first 30/60/90 days in the role. We’ll talk about how to build and establish trust with your principal and how to best analyze your own strengths and weaknesses so that you know all the assets you’re bringing to the table.
All hands, town halls, quarterly business reviews, OKRs - these are all terms that you’ll need to be familiar with as a Chief of Staff. In this week, we’ll learn about the appropriate operating cadences for different stages of companies and how you can lead your org to success in these capacities.
A crucial part of the Chief of Staff role is helping your principal scale: both team and culture. How do you keep the culture of your early stage startup alive as you scale past the double digits? How do you continue to hire and attract top talent? We’ll talk about scaling as your company moves through its different stages.
Making important decisions with limited information really pushes one's ability to connect the dots. Meanwhile, the art and science of prioritization can disrupt the working rhythm and operating cadence required to keep the Chief of Staff at the top of the game to support key business decisions. We'll shed some light on how to navigate when information is scarce.
To be truly ready to take on the Chief of Staff role, we create the Capstone project for all participants to demonstrate their ability apply their learnings throughout the 5-week of lessons and live panel, and present their own solutions to challenging scenarios CoS may face in everyday situation. Capstone projects are design by us based on real-world cases drawn from the experiences from former and existing CoSs.
*Currently only open to SEA-based talents & startups. For non-SEA-based talents and startups, please express your interest here.
For talents that are looking to upskill & land a potential role as an official CoS.
For talents that are looking to upskill & land a potential role as an official CoS. Towards the end of the 5-weeks Course & Training Core, talents that signed up for the Internship Track will be offered the opportunity to be interviewed by founders of high-growth startups that are looking for trained CoS to take in as a 3-month intern before considering offering them a full-time position with a pre-agreed compensation package.
For Venture Capital and Private Equity analysts to hone operational skill sets and offer portfolio value add.
As an internal L&D initiative with Ignition Chamber Academy’s CoS School, VC and PE* of various stages subscribe to the program to allow in-house investment analysts alike to be operationally trained and assist with strategic efforts needed by portfolio companies.
*Please express your interest here if you are writing from VC/PE. We are more than happy to help you to strategize and advise on such arrangements.
We know L&D opportunities for startup operators are hard to come by. Thus, CoS School offers L&D scholarships (in the form of fee rebates) to existing startup talent working in developing startup ecosystems around the world.
Eligibility & Criteria (Latest revision: March 22nd 2023)
We’d recommend you to apply to our Chief of Staff School if:
For aspiring CoS talents and generalists, join CoS School to kick start your career to thrive and triumph in the world that urgently needs more generalists!
Inaugural Cohort Starts in Mid-Late March 2023
For startups looking for a highly trained CoS, partner up with us and register your interest now!
In partnership with
1. What is the program commitment like?
The Course & Training Core segment is self-paced and can be done remotely. You may need a minimum of 4-5 hours per week to extract the most knowledge from what we would like to teach you about the day-to-day of a CoS to prepare you for a successful career trajectory.
The pre-recorded courses will be published at the start of every week, and the live sessions (e.g. instructor office hour or AMA panel sessions) will be conducted towards the end (Thursday/Friday) - that’s where everyone gets to interact with the course instructor and featured high flying CoSs. Each average of an hour. Quizzes are published together with the sessions, whereas Capstone projects will be announced 2-3 weeks in advance before the end of the program.
The Internship Track is a full-time paid internship at US$1,000/month base salary. You are abide by the employment contract and terms agreed upon between you and the startup founder.
The Externship Track is case-to-case as the arrangements are made between the investment firm and the portfolio companies. Analysts still hold their existing job but will take on the extra effort as a learning opportunity.
2. Enrollment confirmation
Only individuals that have successfully made the payment are considered enrolled as a participant. Enrolled participants are expected to complete the courses, quizzes, and the capstone project in order to fulfill the requirement to get the Certificate of Completion.
