Chief of Staff or Executive Assistant: which one are you actually hiring?

In the years I have spent placing Executive Assistants across the UK, the conversation I have had most often with a hiring manager starts with the words “we need an EA, but…”. What follows the “but” is usually a Chief of Staff. Sometimes it is the reverse: a founder asks me for a Chief of Staff, we talk for twenty minutes, and what she actually needs is an Executive Business Partner who can run her week and her board pack. Both mistakes cost months. The first one hires an excellent EA into a job that expects him to arbitrate between two function heads, and loses him within the year. The second pays a Chief of Staff salary for a role that has nothing strategic to run.

This piece is for the moment before the ad goes out. It sits inside the wider process in how to hire an Executive Assistant in 2026. If the answer turns out to be an EA, the scenario-based executive assistant assessment is how you see a candidate do the job before you offer it. If the answer is a Chief of Staff, the assessment for that seat is a separate stream, and I will come to it.

The difference is remit, not seniority

The lazy version says a Chief of Staff is what an EA becomes when they get senior enough. That is wrong, and it is the root of most of the mis-hires I have seen. The EA role has changed a great deal in the last decade, and a senior EA today holds real authority: a spend limit, decisions she makes alone, a say in who gets time with the principal and when. She is a facilitator, not a gatekeeper. She decides how and when people reach the executive and she makes things happen. At the top of the ladder, an Executive Business Partner oversees strategic projects, prepares the board pack, arbitrates between stakeholders, and takes delegated decisions within a defined scope.

None of that makes her a Chief of Staff, and the distinction is not about how capable she is. It is about whose work she is doing. An EA, however senior, extends the principal’s own operating rhythm: his time, his information, his commitments, his relationships. A Chief of Staff extends the principal across the organisation. He speaks on the principal’s behalf in a budget negotiation between two function heads. He holds those heads accountable to the plan. He synthesises what the board needs to see and writes the memo that lands it. He closes decisions in rooms the principal is not in, and knows which ones to leave open until the principal is.

Put simply: an EA runs the principal. A Chief of Staff runs things for the principal. The best EAs I have placed could do both jobs, and some have gone on to. But they are two jobs.

Where the EA ladder ends and the Chief of Staff begins

The Core Standard assesses EAs at three levels, and each is a different job, set by who the assistant supports and how much judgement the seat demands.

• Operational EA. Single-principal support. Inbox triage, diary management, travel, expenses, and internal stakeholder communication, handled reliably so nothing slips.
• EA to Senior Leadership. Multi-principal or C-suite support. Sophisticated diary choreography, board logistics, international travel, discreet personal matters, and cross-functional facilitation.
• Executive Business Partner. Second-brain support to the principal. Strategic project oversight, board pack preparation, stakeholder arbitration, and direct decision delegation within a defined scope.

People often ask whether a Chief of Staff is Level 4. It is not. The Chief of Staff is a separate stream with its own scenario, its own rubric and its own reviewer, because it tests four capabilities that do not appear on the EA ladder at all: proxy decision-making, influence without authority, board-level written communication, and strategic synthesis. An Executive Business Partner arbitrates between stakeholders on the principal’s behalf. A Chief of Staff brings a hostile function head to resolution without leaning on the principal’s name. That is a different muscle, and you cannot promote someone into it on seniority alone.

Eight questions about the role you are writing

Answer these about the job, not the person you have in mind. Be honest about what the role will actually do in month three, not what the ad would sound good saying. Count the answers.

Six or more in the left column: you are hiring an EA, and the only question left is which level. Six or more in the right column: you are hiring a Chief of Staff, and you should title it, pay it and assess it as one. A split down the middle usually means one of two things. Either the role is really an Executive Business Partner, which is the most common honest answer, or you are trying to fill two jobs with one salary, which never holds.

The three ways it goes wrong

Title inflation to attract. Calling an EA role “Chief of Staff” because it sounds better in the ad. It attracts Chief of Staff candidates, who discover in week two that the job is the diary, and leave. Meanwhile the strong EAs who would have been perfect never applied, because they read the title and assumed it was above them.

Calling a Chief of Staff an EA. The reverse, and quieter. The role genuinely involves running projects, holding function heads to account and writing for the board, but it is titled and paid as an EA because that is the budget line that existed. The person you hire either grows into the work and leaves for a job that names it, or never grows into it because nothing told them they were expected to.

Hiring a Chief of Staff with nothing to run. A founder who has read about the role, hires one, and then has no cross-functional problems to hand over because the business has eight people. Six months later she has an expensive project manager with no projects. What she needed was an Executive Business Partner who could run her, and the business, for another two years of growth.

What it means for the ad and the pay

The title on the ad should describe the remit, not the seniority you hope to signal. If the role is an EA at the top of the ladder, say Executive Business Partner and describe the delegated authority: the spend limit, the decisions taken alone, the board pack. Strong EAs read that as a promotion, not a demotion. If it is a Chief of Staff, say so, describe what they will own across the organisation, and be ready for the salary conversation that follows. In my experience the gap between a senior EA and a Chief of Staff is real and it is wide, and an employer who wants Chief of Staff outcomes on an EA budget usually gets neither.

How to assess for each

Whichever it is, the interview will tell you how the candidate presents. Neither role can be assessed that way. For an EA at any level, the Core Standard puts the candidate inside a realistic working day at the level you are hiring, and scores it against five pillars with a reviewer. How to assess an Executive Assistant before you hire covers the process, and the in-tray exercise is a version you can run yourself this week.

For a Chief of Staff, the assessment has to test proxy decision-making, influence without authority, board-level writing and strategic synthesis. A day of EA scenarios will not show you any of those. That is why the Core Standard Chief of Staff assessment is a separate stream, built around a strategic week rather than an operational day: a board pack, two warring function heads, a memo the board will read, a live escalation, and a priorities brief to the CEO at the end of it. It is in development, and you can register your interest to get the booking link the week it opens.

Common questions

---