CEA is hiring for a Chief of Staff (Events Team)

The Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) is seeking a strong operator to join our Events team as Chief of Staff, providing essential support to scale up the effective altruism community's largest conference series and event portfolio.

About CEA and the Events team

The Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA, that’s us!) is an organization dedicated to building and stewarding a global community of people who are thinking carefully about the world’s most pressing problems and taking action to solve them. Our current strategic priorities include growing the effective altruism community, improving the EA brand, and diversifying EA funding sources. 

The Events team manages some of the most important community infrastructure across multiple domains.  EA Global and EAGx are the leading conference series in the EA community and play a foundational role in coordinating and representing the movement. The Summit on Existential Security leads the field for coordinating senior stakeholders in AI Safety, and the Meta Coordination Forum brings together key leaders and organizers to help steward the EA community. We believe the success and growth of these products play a key role in the future of the EA community, and that having an exceptional team is crucial to the success of these projects.

• EA Global attendees typically report that the events are ~5–6x more valuable than how they would otherwise spend their time, and help them to make ~10 new connections.
• 23% of EA Survey 2024 respondents reported EA Global or EAGx as an important factor for their involvement in EA.
• Attendees from the 2023 and the 2024 Summit on Existential Security founded new organizations, secured CEO appointments, expanded their teams, and successfully fundraised at the events.
• The Meta Coordination Forum has helped leaders of organizations coordinate and collaborate to address key challenges facing the EA community.
• When we survey attendees a few months after each event, 10–20% of respondents report finding a short-term or part-time opportunity as a result of our events, and another 1–5% report finding a new full-time opportunity.

In this role, you will provide strategic and operational support to the Director of Events, Amy Labenz, helping to maximize the impact of our programming while ensuring smooth execution across all our initiatives.

Key responsibilities

The responsibilities below represent the core areas of this role, but we expect the specific shape and emphasis of your work to evolve based on your strengths, interests, and the team's priorities.

Strategic Support & Executive Function

• Team prioritisation: Help Amy set priorities, ensure her plans reflect those priorities, and provide accountability to follow through on commitments
• Supporting Amy's effectiveness: Help with meeting preparation, task prioritization, calendar management, email correspondence, and other administrative tasks as needed
• Goal setting: Interface with executive leadership to understand CEA-wide goals, then work with the Events team leads to build ambitious OKRs that ladder up to organizational objectives
• Cross-team impact analysis: Design and update metrics, maintain dashboards, and present updates in meetings

People & Operations

• Staff support: Conduct regular one-on-ones with team members to provide an additional support channel and early problem identification
• Hiring support: Work with People Operations to prioritize among hiring rounds and collaborate with team leads on designing work tests
• Team retreat coordination: Help Amy set the strategy for team retreats and assist with presentations and documentation

Financial Management

• Budgeting: Help propose and manage the team's $10–15 million budget, track spending throughout the year, and review outgoing payments
• Fundraising: Project manage major funding proposals, coordinate input from Amy and team leads, and own shaping the final deliverables

Execution Support

• Program management: Run weekly events team meetings and provide roaming support for key decisions and initiatives across the team
• Ad hoc event support: Attend events as needed, volunteer when helpful, and make yourself available for extra tasks

What we're looking for

We're looking for a strong operator who can be detail-oriented and process-focused, while also being excited about strategic work and high-level decision-making. We're seeking someone who finds fulfillment in multiplying the impact of others through their work.

You might be an ideal candidate if you can demonstrate many of these traits:

• Embrace a service mindset: You're comfortable moving between strategic and administrative responsibilities, recognizing that tasks like meeting preparation and calendar management are essential to our mission's success
• Excel at project management and implementation: You've successfully managed complex projects requiring planning, attention to detail, time management, and coordination across multiple stakeholders
• Combine strategic thinking with operational excellence: You can generate valuable insights into program effectiveness, build useful dashboards, make data-driven recommendations, and execute on strategic initiatives
• Have strong EA context and judgment: You understand the EA community and CEA's goals, and can make strategic recommendations about program priorities while contributing meaningfully to high-level discussions
• Are an excellent communicator: You have strong written and verbal communication skills and feel comfortable coordinating with colleagues at all levels as well as external stakeholders
• Thrive in dynamic, high-ownership environments: You're comfortable with ambiguity, can prioritize effectively across competing demands, and are energized by significant autonomy and responsibility
• Work effectively across time zones: Comfortable with some time zone differences and asynchronous work coordination
• Are excited about delivering world-class events: You value how exceptionally run events can facilitate meaningful connections, drive collaboration, and spark new projects and ideas

We understand that no candidate will meet every criterion, and we expect our strongest candidates to demonstrate many of these qualities rather than all of them. If you are genuinely excited about our mission and can see yourself making a meaningful contribution to the team, we encourage you to apply.

We are committed to fostering a culture of inclusion and encourage individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences to apply. We especially encourage applications from self-identified women and people of colour who are excited about contributing to our mission. The Centre for Effective Altruism is an equal opportunity employer.

Find the salary, job details, and application form here. The deadline to apply is September 3rd.