We are currently seeking a highly disciplined, adaptable, and mission-driven Chief of Staff to the CEO to help translate executive priorities into disciplined execution and create greater leverage for the CEO and leadership team.
This individual will serve as a trusted operating partner and right hand to the CEO, managing follow-through across the leadership team, improving operating cadence, and ensuring priorities, decisions, commitments, and risks are clearly communicated and acted upon. Success in this role requires exceptional judgment, discretion, organizational discipline, executive communication skills, and the ability to thrive in a fast-paced, high-growth environment where priorities evolve rapidly.
The Chief of Staff will work across Engineering, Manufacturing, Programs, Finance, Human Resources, Sales, Operations, Customer Delivery, and other functional teams to convert strategic direction into clear ownership, coordinated action, and measurable follow-through. This person will help KHA scale from founder-led execution toward a more disciplined operating model while preserving the speed, adaptability, and mission focus required in a defense technology company.
Location: Reno, NV (Hybrid)
Responsibilities
- Serve as a trusted operating partner and right hand to the CEO, creating leverage across executive priorities and organizational execution.
- Track CEO priorities, commitments, decisions, open issues, and required follow-up.
- Prepare the CEO for key meetings with concise context, decision points, risks, tradeoffs, and recommended actions.
- Attend selected meetings on behalf of or alongside the CEO and accurately represent CEO intent when appropriate.
- Build and manage a practical leadership team operating cadence focused on decisions, risks, priorities, and cross-functional dependencies.
- Ensure leadership decisions are translated into clear owners, deadlines, deliverables, and follow-up actions.
- Maintain visibility into company priorities, execution risks, resource constraints, timelines, and cross-functional dependencies.
- Coordinate execution across Engineering, Manufacturing, Programs, Finance, Human Resources, Sales, Operations, Customer Delivery, and other functional organizations.
- Identify conflicts, bottlenecks, and unresolved issues early, then facilitate resolution without bypassing or undermining functional leaders.
- Help distinguish mission-critical priorities from lower-value activity and reduce unnecessary priority churn while protecting critical commitments.
- Draft and refine executive communications, decision briefs, talking points, meeting summaries, and other CEO materials.
- Turn complex or disorganized issues into clear decisions, options, risks, and recommended actions.
- Drive accountability and consistent follow-through while fostering strong, productive relationships throughout the organization.
- Recommend and implement scalable leadership operating processes, tools, and best practices that improve execution without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
Requirements:
- 8+ years of progressive experience in military operations, aerospace and defense, manufacturing operations, technical program management, business operations, Chief of Staff, or a closely related leadership role.
- Direct experience serving as a trusted partner to a CEO, founder, commander, senior executive, or equivalent organizational leader.
- Demonstrated operating ownership beyond administrative coordination or traditional executive support responsibilities.
- Demonstrated ability to create structure, follow-through, and accountability in a fast-moving environment with changing priorities and limited structure.
- Strong judgment, discretion, and a record of handling confidential, sensitive, or high-stakes information appropriately.
- Proven ability to influence and drive execution across functions without relying on formal reporting authority.
- Excellent organizational, written, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills with the ability to communicate effectively with both technical and executive stakeholders.
- Ability to work effectively with senior leaders, technical experts, operators, customer-facing leaders, and cross-functional stakeholders.
- Comfort operating with ambiguity, incomplete information, and rapidly changing priorities while maintaining clarity and forward momentum.
- Highly organized, action-oriented, and relentless about follow-through.
- Ability to work on a hybrid basis from the Reno, Nevada area and remain available for in-person executive meetings and business needs.
Preferred:
- Strongly Preferred: Experience in aerospace, defense, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), aviation, autonomous systems, robotics, manufacturing, or another mission-critical technology environment.
- Prior military experience, particularly in a Chief of Staff, Executive Officer, operations, planning, command staff, or similar role.
- Experience in a startup, growth-stage company, founder-led organization, or similarly entrepreneurial environment.
- Experience supporting defense customers, government contracts, production scale-up, field operations, or program delivery.
- Familiarity with leadership operating rhythms, OKRs, EOS, program reviews, integrated master schedules, priority dashboards, or comparable execution systems.
- Experience developing lightweight dashboards, decision logs, action trackers, or leadership-team accountability systems.
- Experience preparing executive, board, military, government, or customer briefings.
- Active or prior security clearance.
The Right Person Will Be:
- Trusted, discreet, and calm under pressure.
- Operationally disciplined without being bureaucratic.
- Comfortable with ambiguity, rapid change, and incomplete information.
- Direct but respectful, with the confidence to challenge when necessary.
- Strong enough to challenge and humble enough to serve.
- Mission-oriented and credible with defense, technical, operational, and manufacturing leaders.
- Able to create clarity where others experience chaos.
What Success Looks Like:
- CEO priorities, commitments, decisions, and follow-up actions are reliably tracked.
- Leadership team meetings have clear agendas, decision focus, action tracking, and consistent follow-through.
- Major priorities, risks, owners, timelines, and cross-functional dependencies are visible.
- Execution risks and unresolved issues are identified early and addressed proactively.
- The CEO is better prepared for key meetings and spends less time chasing follow-up.
- The leadership team experiences the role as useful, credible, and action-oriented.
- Leadership operating processes scale effectively as the organization continues to grow without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.
Who We Are:
KHA develops the world's longest endurance fully electric Unmanned Aerial System ("UAS") in our size and weight category. We solve large-scale worldwide problems by providing persistent overhead services to help our soldiers remain safe in theater, provision rapid emergency communications for disaster relief efforts, enable search-and-rescue services to assist emergency response efforts, help anti-poaching to protect the world's most endangered species and provide geospatial data to assist in slowing climate change.
Compensation:
Competitive compensation and a complete health care package. Additional details regarding salary range and other incentive eligibility will be provided during the hiring process.
How to Apply:
Please submit your resume and a brief cover letter describing your experience serving as a trusted operating partner to a CEO, founder, commander, or senior executive, and why this opportunity is a strong fit for your background.
