Role: Chief of Staff

Reporting to: CEO

Environment: London (or Berlin) - Hybrid + European Travel

Other: We cannot sponsor visas at this time

Opna's Vision

Imagine a thriving, equitable planet where everyone actively participates and benefits from building projects that contribute to a low-carbon economy, safeguarding our environment, and combating climate change. At Opna, we want to make this vision a reality - by unlocking the needed capital for every high-quality climate project that addresses climate change with speed, scale, and equity.

Urgent Challenge

We stand at a pivotal moment in the fight against climate change. We must rapidly undo the centuries-long impact of fossil fuels. This demands an unprecedented infrastructure revolution - we must rapidly scale high-quality climate projects that remove and reduce carbon dioxide from our atmosphere. High-quality carbon projects, from afforestation to biochar, to newer/frontier technologies encounter formidable barriers in accessing necessary financing - that’s where Opna comes in. We’re combining data, financing innovation, and technology to help high-quality climate projects access right timed, right sized financing, anywhere in the world.

Our Solution

Opna offers a software platform for climate-action-committed companies to finance and manage high-quality carbon projects in a standardised, transparent, and cost effective way.

The world’s leading climate-action committed companies are moving away from simply buying carbon credits, to directly financing carbon projects. Thousands of other companies, big and small must follow suit, but simply do not have the inhouse resources, expertise, or large budgets to contract with projects in a cost-effective, transparent, and knowledgeable way.

Opna’s software allows companies to discover a wide range of high-quality carbon projects, understand their risk and impact using Opna’s proprietary risk-assessment engine, finance projects using standardised tools and finally, monitor and report on projects’ post financing.

We’re making carbon projects financing more accessible, cheaper and 100% transparent, enabling companies big and small to take credible climate action. This also helps solve the massive project financing gap and brings net-new supply of high quality carbon projects to the market.

Our Team

We’re a small and agile team across London, Berlin, and Barcelona. Collectively we have deep experience and expertise across capital markets, carbon markets, climate finance, and FinTech. We hold each other accountable and give regular and open communication. We share our optimism for finding solutions to climate change. We’re gritty and actively practice empathy. We are serious about our work, but don’t take ourselves too seriously!

Your Mission

The mission of the Chief of Staff is to enable the CEO to be more efficient and effective- You will be the CEO's trusted partner who she can count on to execute on a wide-ranging set of objectives - from revenue generation to strategy to investor relations. You will be a multiplier here, coming with a challenger mindset to the status quo, and the agency to make things happen to move us forward fast.

Your Role

We’re looking for an experienced and ambitious Chief of Staff (CoS), with previous start-up experience. Reporting to the CEO, you will be Shilps’s force multiplier and a swiss-army knife to deliver on a myriad of business tasks and company initiatives - from ops to business development, strategic partnerships to ‘whatever is business critical next’.

This role comes with high visibility, high responsibility, and high expectations. Our CEO has high standards, and so should you. Consequently, this role is best suited for folks who have been in a demanding start-up environment and 0-1 set-up i.e. they understand how start-ups and people work, amidst chaos and uncertainty, have high attention to detail, and know this often isn’t the 9-5 gig. We’re a small team today, which means you’ll have a high impact, with exposure to investors, clients, and partners - so the right person will have high accountability, drive, and commitment.

We believe there are 10 things needed to be a great Chief of Staff…

1. Very high bias-to-action and intrinsic motivation (and as a result, proven track record) for solving problems and getting things done with speed and quality. You do not wait to be told what you need to get done- by then,you typically have already spotted the issue and solved it. As a mini CEO, you have execution and the mindset to improve the value of the company.
2. High integrity: This role will involve you getting access to a lot of sensitive information - you are a high-integrity person and strive to build and keep trust
3. Great communication skills: You will be communicating with internal and external stakeholders, often as Shilps- it is important that you are able to do this well. You will also be helping Shilps with social media, PR and other situations where you will need to communicate original content as Shilps.
4. Grit: Shilps does many things in her day that are not the most glamorous tasks and some types of work require long hours and a lot of grinding, with tight timelines. In your role, you will be mirroring Shilps and acting as mini-CEO in many situations. This will require grit, resilience and ability to work longer hours when necessary.
5. Exceptional learning ability, and resourceful when expanding your knowledge/skill-set: We are building in a nascent, fast paced industry. We’ll need you to ramp up not only on climate and our product space, but also on a wide array of workstreams- be it legal, regulatory or even figuring out how to design our social media presence.
6. Good chemistry and emotional connection with Shilps : You will be working closely with Shilps and it will only be fun if there is a shared natural connection that makes the work fun, and impactful. This combination builds trust.
7. Mission-Aligned: You want to dedicate your skills and experience to solving climate challenges - We are an early stage company building in a nascent market. Without the alignment with our mission, You will likely find the going hard, and the learning curve steep.
8. Tactical and Strategic: able to execute on tactical steps and thinking about the longer horizon.
9. Deep analytical skills: You can comfortably tackle a lot of data and insights in order to guide our decisions
10. Attention to detail: You’re the type of person that notices the bug in the data, the error in the email, picks up on specific words used, and reads the small print.

Experience Required

• Track record planning, executing complex and business critical projects, third party management.
• Experience as a Chief of Staff in an early stage (Series A-C) start-up.
• Experience with operational processes such as accounting and taxation.
• Experience with contract handling and regulatory requirements.
• Experience with investor relations.
• Excellent proficiency with Data handling, Excel, and PowerPoint presentations.
• Background in a demanding environment desirable (e.g., FinTech, Banking, Consulting)
• Background in a senior operational role, GTM/Business Development, or previous founder is interesting to us.
• Additional languages spoken a plus (German, French, Spanish).

Interview Process

While we have strong due diligence due to the high impact position, the process is swift, pragmatic, and friendly!

• Screen with Talent Partner
• Video call with CEO, Shilps
• Onsite assessment (task/case study) with Shilps + Advisor
• Meet the team
• Call with investor(s)
• Final chat with Shilps
• References to Offer

Competitive salary + VSOP + statutory benefits + 25 days holidays + homeworking allowance

Diversity & Inclusion

We know that diversity is multifaceted and intersectional, and we want to build a company where different identities and perspectives can come together to deliver on our mission and vision. We are a venture-backed company founded and led by a woman of colour. 100% of our team today has their roots in the global south, and over half of our pre-seed investors identify as women. We speak English, Hindi, Spanish, French and Afrikaans across our team.