Chief of Staff to the CEO

Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit building a better technology future — powered by people, open by design, fueled by imagination.

We deliver people-first alternatives to today’s extractive systems. We build side by side with developers, innovators and advocates, united in the belief that a better technology future is not only possible — it’s ours to create!

Team

Our CEO is increasingly focused outward on the Board, funders, partners, and public conversations that will shape the Foundation’s next chapter. This newly created Chief of Staff role exists to extend the CEO’s reach inside the organization and make that outward focus possible.

Reporting directly to the CEO, you’ll serve as the CEO’s strategic partner, internal proxy and trusted extension of their leadership. You’ll hold the CEO’s strategic agenda, translate the CEO’s priorities into organizational alignment, represent the CEO internally where needed, and make decisions on the CEO’s behalf within clearly delegated authority. You’ll determine what reaches the CEO, prepare the CEO for consequential moments, and escalate only what requires the CEO’s judgment.

As a member of the Executive Leadership Team, you’ll partner strategically with other members of the ELT and work closely with the CEO’s Executive Program Manager to make sure the CEO’s time, priorities, and commitments stay aligned and moving.

You’ll also partner with the Foundation’s Investment Committee and its technical and strategic advisors, keeping their focus on the right questions, their recommendations aligned with the Foundation’s strategic priorities, and decisions moving efficiently from evaluation to funding.

Job responsibilities

Here’s what you’ll likely be focused on for the first 6 months:

• Building a strong working partnership with the CEO, aligning on priorities, ways of working and clearly defining the scope of your delegated authority.
• Establishing a trusted partnership with each member of the Executive Leadership Team, learning their priorities, pressures and ways of working.
• Developing a deep, cross-functional understanding of the Foundation’s work and how each function connects to the CEO’s priorities.
• Translating the CEO’s priorities into a concise, clear set of strategic outcomes that leaders understand and can use to guide the decisions they own, with a current view of what’s changing and which decisions are approaching.
• Defining with the CEO what truly requires their attention, and ensuring issues reach them decision-ready, with context, options and a recommendation.
• Getting up to speed with the Investment Committee and its advisors, and helping keep their focus on the right questions so decisions move efficiently from evaluation to funding.

As the Chief of Staff to Mozilla Foundation’s CEO, you will…

• Serve as the CEO’s thought partner in developing, pressure-testing and refining strategic priorities, synthesizing executive insight and external developments to anticipate what will need to be known or decided in the next 30, 60 and 90 days.
• Direct the CEO’s time toward strategy, external relationships, development, Board leadership and the Foundation’s highest-consequence decisions.
• Filter rather than forward, so significant shifts in strategy, material risks, major budget decisions and Board-level matters reach the CEO early, with context, options and a recommendation.
• Maintain a current view of the CEO’s top priorities, identify where work is drifting from strategic intent, and surface conflicts in priorities, resources or attention before they become emergencies.
• Enable the Executive Leadership Team to operate as one team around the CEO’s priorities, so the right issues reach the ELT at the right level and decisions and commitments are followed through.
• Partner with ELT members on cross-functional issues that need CEO-level alignment but not the CEO’s direct involvement.
• Represent the CEO’s position in internal discussions and make decisions on the CEO’s behalf within delegated authority, bringing anything beyond it back to the CEO promptly.
• Ensure the CEO enters every Board meeting, funder and partner conversation, speech and public engagement fully prepared, with concise briefings, organizational context and answers to likely questions.
• Identify external opportunities that warrant the CEO’s attention, and ensure commitments the CEO makes externally translate into clear internal follow-through.
• Steward alignment between the Investment Committee’s work and the Foundation’s strategy: keep its technical and strategic advisors focused on the right questions, surface gaps, risks or competing views, and bring forward matters that need the CEO’s judgment.

What this role is not

This is a role of influence. It exists to ensure the CEO can lead effectively through the Executive Leadership Team.

• The Chief of Staff does not manage the Executive Leadership Team or run the Foundation’s operations. Each executive leader owns execution and decisions within their area.
• This role does not make decisions beyond the authority the CEO has delegated. Anything outside that authority returns to the CEO.
• This role does not have any direct reports and also doesn’t manage the CEO’s calendar, scheduling or administrative support.

Your Professional Profile

• Significant, verifiable experience as a strategic partner at CEO or executive-team level, with a track record of leading high-stakes work and turning ambiguity into structure and action.
• Experience working across multiple legal entities is a plus, including navigating differences, building influence, and coordinating work across entities where relevant. 
• A proven record of driving complex, cross-functional priorities from idea to execution by defining outcomes, ownership, milestones and decision points.
• Exceptional judgment and discretion, including handling confidential information and navigating complex executive dynamics with integrity.
• Demonstrated ability to influence without formal authority, build trust across functions and at the most senior levels, and give direct feedback with care.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication, with experience distilling complex information into decision-ready briefs, recommendations, presentations and executive communications.
• Strong analytical and strategic problem-solving skills: you frame the right question, gather the right information, test assumptions and recommend a practical path forward.
• Disciplined prioritization, with the agility to move between long-term priorities and time-sensitive issues without losing the thread.
• Direct experience supporting Board governance, fundraising or other high-stakes external relationships at an executive level.
• A track record of doing high-impact work out of the spotlight, measuring your success by the CEO’s and the team’s, and acting in the best interests of the CEO and the organization.
• A demonstrated commitment to Mozilla Foundation’s mission and to building an open, accessible and trustworthy internet.
• The ability to work across time zones and occasionally outside standard working hours for Board meetings, major events or urgent organizational needs.
• Comfortable traveling for Board meetings, leadership gatherings and major events.

We Are Excited To See Any Additional Experience With:

• Senior roles in nonprofit, philanthropic, technology or public-interest organizations.
• Supporting or advising investment, grantmaking or funding committees.

How We Work

A few things that are true about how we work at Mozilla Foundation. Here's a summary along with our expectation of how these should show up in this role:

• Move toward the hard thing: you surface conflicts in priorities, resources or attention early, and give the CEO and executives direct, actionable input, including what they may not want to hear. You disagree constructively in the room, not afterward, and you don’t wait for someone else to raise it.
• Stay curious and current: you stay close to what executives are seeing and what’s happening in our fields and communities, and turn it into the context the CEO needs. You pressure-test assumptions, including your own.
• Work in the open: you document decisions and the reasoning behind them, so executives and teams can follow how and why priorities are set. You favor shared channels over side conversations wherever appropriate.
• Focus and finish: you keep the CEO’s agenda focused on what matters most, make deliberate choices about what does and doesn’t need the CEO, and make sure decisions and commitments are seen through.
• Flex with purpose: you move between long-term priorities and time-sensitive issues as context shifts, and adapt how you work with each executive. Flexibility isn’t about being agreeable; it’s staying responsive while holding to the mission and the CEO’s priorities.
• Lead with care: you hold a high bar for the work while treating people as whole humans. You extend good faith to fellow executives, respect that each owns their area, and talk directly to the person who can solve the problem.

Salary and Benefits Information

Mozilla Foundation is dedicated to fair and equitable compensation for our staff. We aim to pay a competitive and market-based salary based on the responsibilities and requirements of the role. We do not ask for, or take into account, salary histories in our offer process.

The starting salary ranges for this role are listed below. 

• Germany: €206,448.00 – €232,253.22
• UK: £181,764.00 – £204,483.81
• Canada: $356,400.00 – $400,948.65
• US: $264,000.00 – $296,999.00

We also offer the following benefits:

• Private Medical Insurance
• Extended Sick Leave
• Global Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Retirement Plan contributions
• Paid Time Off: 20 days annual leave + sick days and your birthday
• Company Holidays + EOY Shutdown
• Wellness budget
• Professional Development budget
• Top up program for Pregnancy and Parental leaves

Benefits are subject to change at any time at the discretion of Mozilla Foundation.

Mozilla Foundation Hiring Practices

Mozilla understands that valuing diverse creative practices and forms of knowledge are crucial to and enrich the company’s core mission. We encourage applications from everyone, including members of all equity-seeking communities, such as (but certainly not limited to) women, racialized and Indigenous persons, persons with disabilities, and persons of all sexual orientations and gender identities and expressions.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation at accommodation@mozillafoundation.org.

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