Office of the CEO

Here’s the typical lawyer answer: it depends. The size of the Office of the CEO (OCEO) varies depending on your organization's scale and structure, ranging from a small team to a larger, multifunctional group. Some OCEOs consist of an Executive Assistant and a Chief of Staff; others may have dozens of resources including multiple admins, Chief of Staff, Deputy Chief of Staff, Corporate Strategists, Director of Communications, Interns and others.

There is one usual suspect. Most OCEO teams typically report into the Chief of Staff. At larger organizations, there may multiple additional managers, including a Head of Administation or Deputy Chief of Staff.

The short answer? A lot. Your CEO Office scope typically encompasses executive operations and C-suite enablement as well as enterprise strategic planning and special projects. The CEO Office often deals with corporate governance and high-level internal and external stakeholders. Additional functions may include: Corporate or Executive Communications, Investor Relations, Innovation, and Digital Transformation.

The best Offices of the CEO systematically conduct business reviews. These involve comprehensive assessments of organizational performance, financial metrics, and strategic alignment to ensure the company is on track with its goals. The frequency of business reviews within Offices of the CEO can vary, but usually these reviews formally occur on an annual cycle. In more dynamic, fast-paced environments, reviews may occur on a quarterly basis.

Your CEO’s latest, most urgent, high impact new priority will get special attention, especially if it has no logical home among the C-suite team.

Tools are vital for the Office of the CEO. But careful you don’t add too many. These include executive dashboards, social media platforms, project management, and data analytics, to amplify CEO effectiveness, decision-making and output. These tools form the Leadership OS - the operating system that empowers the CEO and C-suite team to achieve peak performance.

Project management tools like Gantt charts, status trackers and collaboration software are commonly used by CEO offices to ensure seamless execution of key initiatives. In our experience, specific tools have included Asana, Trello, Monday.com, and Microsoft Project.

Offices of the CEO talent are the most upwards, high potential leaders you have in your organization. You must foster career growth by providing mentorship, training programs, and exposure to diverse business functions, preparing team members for advancement within the organization. Individuals from the CEO's office may transition into roles in leadership, corporate strategy and development, operations management, communications, human resources, and/or Chief of Staff roles.

Interaction between the Office of the CEO and functional leadership, such as the SVP Finance, involves both regular coordination (i.e. strategic planning) and opportunistic collaboration on special initiatives (i.e. new product launch). Executive Assistants and Chiefs of Staff play important ambassador roles, bringing in multiple leadership heads at the right time to convene with the CEO.

The biggest challenges for Offices of the CEO today include unpredictable markets, hidden business risks and the sheer demand for CEO time and energy from dozens if not hundreds of stakeholders, including investors, employees, customers, prospects, and the public.