Chief of Staff

About Sapiom

Sapiom is creating the financial infrastructure that AI agents need in order to operate in the real world. As autonomous systems start taking actions for people and businesses — such as making purchases, launching compute, activating workflows, and connecting with external services — the existing payments stack falls short because it was designed for humans, not machines. Sapiom is building autonomous spend rails that let AI agents transact safely while handling controls, metering, monetization, and cross-rail payments without requiring companies to reinvent payments, compliance, or risk systems in-house.

The company is backed by $15.75M from Accel, Menlo, and Anthropic, and is led by a team with deep experience in payments and infrastructure. Its goal is to become the operating layer for the machine economy.

About the Role

This is a high-trust, high-ownership Chief of Staff position supporting the CEO in San Francisco. The role sits at the center of the organization and focuses on turning founder vision into execution. You will work closely with the CEO on the company’s daily operating rhythm, keep initiatives moving, identify and remove blockers early, and help the business scale with discipline and speed.

What You’ll Do

You will collaborate with the CEO on strategic decisions and operational follow-through, including acting as a trusted representative in important internal and external conversations. The role spans the business broadly — from helping shape commercial partnerships and supporting go-to-market efforts, to speaking with partner CTOs and confidently explaining the product to developers. You will also apply the same rigor to legal, finance, and people operations that a production system demands, while building processes that are ready for audit from day one. In addition, you will use automation wherever possible and help assemble early teams that can later be transitioned to dedicated owners.

Responsibilities

• Act as the CEO’s operational extension by converting strategy into measurable initiatives, coordinating work across Engineering, Product, and GTM, and keeping top priorities advancing with clarity and ownership.
• Design and standardize core operating workflows across finance, legal, compliance, hiring, and general operations, with systems built to support rapid growth and audit readiness.
• Help drive the commercial motion by organizing design partner relationships, defining ideal customer profiles, managing GTM rhythms, and feeding customer insights back into product direction and positioning.
• Own investor and capital-support work by turning market feedback into a clear narrative, preparing board and investor materials, and running fundraising processes from start to finish.
• Set up and lead new functions in the early stages, serving as the interim manager until a strong domain expert is hired and the function can be handed off.

Requirements

• At least 10 years of experience in a high-ownership role such as Engineering, Technical Program Management, Product, or Strategy, with a history of delivering complex cross-functional work end to end.
• Strong technical understanding, with the ability to speak credibly with engineers and partner CTOs, represent the product externally, and spot technical opportunities for growth.
• Experience creating or scaling business operations in a fast-growing startup, including finance, legal, compliance, and hiring.
• Background in supporting or leading fundraising processes from start to finish, including data rooms, pitch decks, investor storytelling, and diligence coordination.
• Experience shaping commercial partnerships, including LOIs, ICPs, success metrics, and converting customer discovery into product direction.
• Confidence in challenging executive assumptions constructively and identifying blind spots in high-pressure decision-making settings.
• Ability to build recruiting systems and hiring standards that improve team quality, with willingness to lead a function temporarily when needed.
• Practical experience with automation tools and AI agents, with a bias toward removing operational friction through systems instead of adding headcount.
• A builder’s mindset with the ability to design for 100x scale from the outset.

Location

This position is based onsite in San Francisco, CA.

Additional Information

This is a full-time role. No stipend or salary amount was specified in the source information.