Chief of Staff

Company: Barsys
Role: Chief of Staff
Reports To: Founder & CEO (dotted line to Chief Business Officer)
Partners With: CEO, CBO
Location: Midtown, New York City, NY (in-office)
Type: Full-Time, Exempt
JOB DESCRIPTION
Chief of Staff
Operating Partner to the CEO across the Barsys platform, with HR & People under the role
Direct reports
Business Operations Manager · Strategy & Special Projects Associate · HR/People Ops Lead (initial team; scope grows with the CEO's agenda)
Location
New York, NY
Mandate
Extend the CEO's reach across strategy, governance, cross-business-unit operating rhythm, and the HR/People function

About Barsys
Barsys is a consumer-robotics and software company building the first first-party, intent-based advertising network for the U.S. spirits and beverage category. The Barsys platform combines a six-generation hardware portfolio, a multi-million-user consumer cocktail-making application, the Barsys Ad Network, and the Corporate Happy Hours experiential events business. The Company is AI-native, with the majority of its operating work streams AI-enabled, and is venture-backed with a Growth Round currently funding the build-out of its commercial organization

About this Role
The Chief of Staff sits inside the Office of the CEO and is the connective tissue across a platform business with four distinct commercial engines — consumer hardware, the Barsys app, the Ad Network, and Corporate Happy Hours. This is not an EA role; it is the person who turns the CEO's priorities into a running operating system across a senior, fast-moving executive bench. The role also carries direct ownership of HR and people management — Barsys does not have a separate Head of HR, and the Chief of Staff is the executive accountable for the people function.

Why Barsys, Why Now
Barsys is scaling from a single consumer-hardware brand into a multi-business-unit platform company, funded by a current Growth Round and staffed with a senior operating bench across hardware, software, revenue, and finance.

Role Overview
Barsys is hiring a Chief of Staff to work directly with the CEO and CBO on strategy, planning, investor materials, the cross-functional operating cadence that keeps four business units (hardware, app, Ad Network, Events) moving as one company rather than four, and the HR/people function for the company as a whole. The role carries real authority to drive decisions and hold functional leaders accountable on the CEO's behalf, and to own the policies, systems, and practices that make Barsys a well-run place to work as it scales.

Core Responsibilities
Run the company's operating cadence — weekly staff meetings, quarterly planning, OKR tracking — across all business units, and hold functional and business-unit leaders accountable to commitments made in those forums.

Own the HR/People function end-to-end: recruiting coordination and offer process, onboarding, performance-review cycles, compensation and leveling frameworks, benefits administration, and employee-relations issues as they arise.

Own culture and engagement initiatives — company-wide communications, all-hands, employee feedback loops — as the company grows past the size where culture happens by default.

Lead special projects that sit across business-unit lines — pricing decisions that touch both hardware and Ad Network, org-design questions, new business-unit launches — where no single functional leader owns the full picture.

Partner with CBO on strategic initiatives and driving the operating cadence of the company
Represent the CEO in select external and internal forums, and ensure follow-through on commitments

Build the internal operating infrastructure — decision logs, project trackers, meeting rhythms — that lets a small, AI-native team run like a much larger organization.

Partner with CBO and VP of Finance on budget-cycle coordination, including compensation and benefits budgeting, ops and the Head of Marketing on cross-business-unit dependencies.

What Success Looks Like — Year 1
A documented, running operating cadence exists across all business units — weekly, monthly, and quarterly rhythms that the CEO and board can rely on without having to chase status.
Board and investor materials are consistently accurate, on time, and require minimal last-minute CEO involvement to finalize.
Core HR infrastructure is in place — a documented leveling and comp framework, a working performance-review cycle, an employee handbook, and clean HRIS/payroll/benefits administration — replacing whatever ad hoc practices existed before.
At least one cross-business-unit strategic project has been carried from problem definition to implementation under the Chief of Staff's direct ownership.
The CEO has a trusted operating partner who can represent their priorities credibly to senior functional leaders, and employees have a credible, responsive point of contact for people issues.

What Success Looks Like — Year 3
The Chief of Staff function has scaled into a small strategy/BizOps and People team, with the original Chief of Staff either running that team, having hired a dedicated Head of People underneath them, or having moved into a business-unit leadership role.
The company's operating system — planning, board reporting, cross-BU coordination, and HR practices — is institutionalized enough to survive leadership transitions without disruption.
The role has been a proving ground for at least one subsequent general-management or executive appointment inside the company.

The Candidate We're Looking For
6–10+ years of experience in a Chief of Staff, strategy, general management, or investment banking/consulting-to-operating role, ideally with prior exposure to a venture-backed, multi-business-unit company.
Direct, hands-on experience with HR and people management — comp/leveling frameworks, performance-review cycles, HRIS and benefits administration, and employee-relations issues — not just theoretical familiarity with HR best practice.
Demonstrated ability to build and run an operating cadence — planning cycles, OKRs, board reporting — not just participate in one.
Strong written and analytical skills; comfortable building board-grade materials independently.
High trust, high discretion, and comfortable holding senior functional leaders accountable without formal authority over them, while also being a fair, approachable point of contact for employees on people matters.
Thrives in a small, AI-native, senior-density team and is energized by ambiguity and cross-functional scope — comfortable being both a strategic partner to the CEO and a hands-on owner of HR operations.

Barsys is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to building a senior bench that reflects the breadth of the category it serves.

Please email [email protected] your resume.