Chief of Staff Household Operations Director
2 days ago
New York
Job Description We are seeking an exceptional Chief of Staff / Household Operations Director to support the founder of an internationally recognized landscape and design atelier working at the intersection of architecture, gardens, culture, hospitality, and lifestyle. The studio specializes in high-end residential landscapes, master planning, bespoke exterior architecture, and immersive environments for private clients across the United States and Europe. Rooted in a deep appreciation for beauty, craftsmanship, wellness, and emotional experience, the practice operates more like a creative house than a traditional landscape firm. This role sits at the center of that world. The Chief of Staff / Household Operations Director will serve as a strategic executive partner and operational lead across both business and household environments — helping steward the daily rhythm, communication flow, scheduling, priorities, atmosphere, and overall experience of a dynamic entrepreneurial and creative life. This is a highly integrated role combining executive coordination, operational leadership, project oversight, private hospitality, household management, lifestyle coordination, and environmental stewardship. The ideal candidate is equally comfortable managing executive workflow, budgets, team coordination, scheduling, vendors, and logistics as they are helping shape environments that feel elevated, calm, welcoming, beautiful, and alive. The position requires someone highly organized, emotionally intelligent, aesthetically refined, discreet, adaptable, and operationally precise — a person capable of bringing continuity, responsiveness, structure, elegance, and calm to a fast-moving creative environment with many simultaneous priorities and relationships. The ideal candidate understands that environments influence creativity, well-being, collaboration, and performance. They naturally maintain spaces that feel thoughtful, restorative, inspiring, and operationally seamless — where editors, collaborators, creatives, clients, friends, and family may move fluidly between moments of work, conversation, hospitality, and creative exchange. This role is similar in spirit to the operational stewardship of a refined showroom, atelier, private members club, or fashion house environment: balancing precision and flexibility while ensuring that the overall experience of the space, business operations, and daily life feels effortless, cared for, and deeply considered The right person is proactive without rigidity, warm without performance, highly competent without ego, and genuinely energized by helping create exceptional environments and experiences. They are someone who takes pride not only in execution, but in stewardship — helping maintain a home and studio that function as both sanctuary and creative headquarters. Core Responsibilities Executive Coordination & Operational Leadership • Serve as a trusted executive partner to the founder across both business and personal operations, • Manage complex personal and professional calendars, scheduling, and travel logistics with precision and flexibility, • Coordinate meetings, appointments, project timelines, and ongoing operational priorities across multiple active projects and environments, • Help oversee day-to-day business operations, executive workflow, communications, and organizational follow-through, • Track priorities, deadlines, deliverables, approvals, and ongoing initiatives while helping ensure continuity across a fast-moving entrepreneurial practice, • Assist in managing communication flow between team members, consultants, vendors, collaborators, clients, and household staff, • Help oversee operational systems, internal coordination, and project accountability across both studio and household environments, • Maintain awareness of ongoing business development, project movement, staffing needs, scheduling conflicts, and operational priorities, • Assist with drafting, organizing, reviewing, and tracking documents, proposals, invoices, budgets, presentations, and operational materials, • Support executive decision-making by helping maintain clarity, organization, prioritization, and operational visibility across many simultaneous moving parts, • Assist in overseeing household and studio budgets, expense tracking, purchasing, subscriptions, invoicing coordination, and vendor payments, • Work closely with bookkeeping, accounting, and administrative teams to help maintain operational accuracy and financial organization, • Bring strong financial literacy, sound judgment, and comfort working within high-touch operational environments where budgets, timelines, staffing, and resource allocation require thoughtful oversight, • Help manage and coordinate household staff, vendors, consultants, and support personnel while maintaining a calm, respectful, solutions-oriented working environment, • Anticipate needs proactively, identify inefficiencies, and solve problems before escalation, • Act as both operational stabilizer and thoughtful gatekeeper within a highly dynamic creative and entrepreneurial environment Household & Family Operations • Oversee smooth day-to-day household functioning, • Coordinate household staff, vendors, maintenance, deliveries, and service providers, • Manage family scheduling, children’s activities, appointments, and logistics, • Maintain organized and supportive household systems, • Help create an environment that feels calm, beautiful, restorative, and operationally seamless, • Anticipate needs proactively and resolve issues before escalation Lifestyle & Environment Stewardship A significant aspect of this role is helping steward the emotional tone, beauty, and energetic quality of the home and studio environment. Responsibilities include: • Supporting a calm and grounded daily rhythm within the home and workspace, • Maintaining environments that feel clean, elevated, welcoming, and creatively inspiring, • Assisting in creating space and protection around the principal’s personal wellness and creative practices, • Helping preserve moments of quiet, focus, restoration, and creative flow within an otherwise dynamic environment, • Coordinating thoughtful hospitality for guests, collaborators, editors, creatives, and visitors, • Maintaining small environmental rituals and details that contribute to atmosphere and well-being, • Supporting the home and studio as spaces of beauty, culture, creativity, and thoughtful living The ideal candidate appreciates that environments affect how people think, feel, create, and interact. Communication & Relationship Management • Serve as liaison with schools, collaborators, consultants, vendors, and service providers, • Maintain professionalism, warmth, discretion, and excellent communication, • Help ensure thoughtful follow-through across personal and professional relationships, • Support cultivation of long-term trusted partnerships and resources Ideal Candidate Profile The ideal candidate is: • Highly organized but not rigid, • Warm, grounded, intuitive, and emotionally intelligent, • Calm under pressure and naturally solution-oriented, • Exceptionally discreet and trustworthy, • Operationally strong with refined personal sensibility, • Comfortable balancing structure with fluidity, • Proactive, detail-oriented, and highly observant, • Someone who naturally notices atmosphere, flow, beauty, and hospitality, • Financially literate and operationally minded, • Comfortable managing both executive-level coordination and hands-on operational details, • Interested in supporting a life centered around creativity, wellness, culture, and meaningful work Preferred Background • Experience supporting entrepreneurs, founders, creatives, executives, or private households, • Strong operational, administrative, and organizational capabilities, • Familiarity with hospitality, design, wellness-oriented living, luxury service, or cultural environments, • Experience coordinating household systems, budgets, schedules, and lifestyle logistics, • Comfort working within evolving entrepreneurial and creative environments, • Confidence managing vendors, team members, budgets, and operational priorities simultaneously Desired Qualities • Emotional steadiness, • Operational excellence, • Integrity and discretion, • Strong follow-through, • Adaptability and initiative, • Excellent organizational instincts, • Appreciation for beauty, design, wellness, culture, and thoughtful living, • Ability to create calm, rhythm, and support within a dynamic environment, • Natural hospitality instincts and pride in creating elevated experiences Role Objective The purpose of this role is to help create a deeply supported, organized, beautiful, and operationally excellent environment — allowing the principal, family, team, and collaborators to experience greater ease, creativity, well-being, inspiration, and quality of life. Company DescriptionAt KVKL, we celebrate individuality and bold ideas. Our small, intimate team operates without rigid structures, allowing room for creativity, ownership, and exponential growth. This is a unique opportunity to work closely with an innovative CEO who values ambition and ingenuity. If you’re looking to break the mold, shape your career and leave a lasting impact on an iconic brand, KVKL is the perfect place for you.At KVKL, we celebrate individuality and bold ideas. Our small, intimate team operates without rigid structures, allowing room for creativity, ownership, and exponential growth. This is a unique opportunity to work closely with an innovative CEO who values ambition and ingenuity. If you’re looking to break the mold, shape your career and leave a lasting impact on an iconic brand, KVKL is the perfect place for you.