Chief of Staff

Zero Prime Ventures; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discretionary performance bonus

Carry eligibility

Job summary

Zero Prime Ventures is seeking a Chief of Staff to run two connected businesses—AI Council and Zero Prime Ventures. You will own operating plans, budgets, and P&L, and lead sales, marketing, events, and finance efforts.

You’ll work with existing leaders to align priorities, prepare decisions, and protect focus, while expanding founder leverage across both organizations. This is a hands-on, growth-focused operating role in SF.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated ownership of ambiguous problems.
• Ability to move between commercial, marketing, events, and finance.
• Comfort with P&L and practical budgeting/forecasting.

Responsibilities

• Build and run operating plan across growth, sponsorship, marketing, events, and finance.
• Own the management rhythm: priorities, metrics, budgets, forecasts, logs.
• Develop event economics and grow revenue while tightening margins.
• Coordinate internal teams and external partners to launch and run events.
• Turn learnings into improved playbooks and repeatable processes.

Skills

High-agency generalist

Ownership mindset

AI tooling savvy

Education

MBA preferred

Job description

Zero Prime is an early-stage venture firm backing engineer-founders building core software infrastructure for the AI era. We invest at day zero, partnering with builders creating the systems that power modern AI — across software infrastructure, AI engineering, developer tools, and intelligent systems. Notable investments include Modal, Runware, Hex, Pydantic, and Higgsfield.

We are also the firm behind AI Council, a global technical conference for engineers building production AI systems. Formerly Data Council, AI Council brings together practitioners across AI, ML, and data engineering for deeply technical insights focused on real systems and real applications. Through events, content, and community, AI Council connects the builders shaping the AI stack today.

The Opportunity

We're hiring a Chief of Staff to help run two connected businesses at the center of the AI ecosystem: AI Council, our community and conference for the people shipping AI, and Zero Prime Ventures, our day-zero fund backing deeply technical founders.

This is a mini-COO role for an unusually capable generalist. Most of your time will go toward operating and growing AI Council across sales, marketing, event production, and finance — with ownership of plans, metrics, budgets, and P&L. You'll work alongside, and help direct, the people and partners who already run each of these functions day to day, owning the overall plan and the numbers. You'll also help increase the Founder's leverage across both organizations: turning priorities into action, preparing decisions, protecting focus, and making sure important threads don't drop.

The scope is intentionally broad and expected to grow. The right person will earn ownership quickly and can develop toward broader operating leadership over time.

What You Will Own

• Build and run the operating plan across audience growth, sponsorship and ticket sales, marketing, programming, event production, and finance — working closely with the teammates and partners who run each function day to day.
• Own the management rhythm: priorities, metrics, budgets, forecasts, decision logs, and follow-through.
• Develop a clear view of event and business economics; identify the highest-leverage opportunities to grow revenue, improve margin, and strengthen the community.
• Coordinate internal teammates and external partners — including our event production agency — so launches and events move from idea to excellent execution.
• Turn each event into a better system for the next one: capture learning, improve playbooks, and remove recurring failure points.

Drive Founder Priorities

• Translate the Founder's priorities across AI Council and Zero Prime into a focused weekly agenda and concrete next actions.
• Prepare meetings, decisions, and communications so the Founder enters the moments that matter with the right context.
• Surface tradeoffs early, close loops, and represent the Founder's intent clearly when they're not in the room.

Own Zero Prime Operations

• Take projects from an unclear need to a finished outcome, whether that means hiring for a key role, managing team capacity, supporting a portfolio company, or building a new partnership.
• Define the work, bring in the right people, make decisions, and stay accountable for execution.
• Connect what AI Council is hearing from technical builders to opportunities across Zero Prime

What Success Looks Like Within the First Year

• AI Council has a dependable operating cadence and a clear, current view of pipeline, audience growth, event readiness, budgets, and P&L.
• Major events and commercial programs run with fewer surprises and stronger economics.
• The Founder spends more time on the relationships, investment decisions, and creative work only they can do.
• Cross-business priorities are explicit, owners are clear, and important follow-through happens without repeated prompting.
• You have earned materially broader decision rights and scope.

You may be a fit if you ...

• Are a high-agency generalist who likes owning ambiguous problems from first principles through execution.
• Can move comfortably between commercial work, marketing, events, finance, executive communication, and operational detail.
• Understand a P&L and can build a practical budget or forecast; you don't need to hand every quantitative question to someone else.
• Are fully AI-pilled in your choice of tools & processes and are constantly looking to find additional ways to use AI to scale.
• Write clearly, make sound judgments with incomplete information, and know when to decide versus when to escape.
• Have low ego about the work. You can shape a strategy and still fix the spreadsheet, chase the dependency, or handle the logistics that make it real.
• Want an in-person apprenticeship in how an AI community business and an early-stage venture fund are built, working alongside a team rather than building everything solo.

An MBA is a plus, but demonstrated ownership matters more. We’re especially interested in people who have built and run operations at a startup, venture firm, or other fast-moving business, or who have moved from management consulting into an operating role. Evidence of ownership, learning speed, commercial judgment, and follow-through matters more than a perfectly matched résumé.

Logistics & Compensation

• Full-time and in person in San Francisco. Office is near Jackson Square.
• Base salary of $150,000–$180,000, based on experience.
• Discretionary performance bonus.
• Eligibility for carry, with details discussed during the process.