I have been a chief of staff, and I have worked for arguably the most important one in the world.
Co-founder, The Coul & Gold Group
Board member, LIFT-DC
Arlington, Virginia
The second one came first. In the Clinton White House I was Special Assistant to John Podesta while he was Chief of Staff to the President, and again afterward while he was building the Center for American Progress. I watched the job from about four feet away for a little over a year before anyone let me try it.
Then I tried it. I was the nineteenth employee at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, serving as Deputy Chief Technology Officer and Chief of Staff to the CIO. We took the technology organization from two people to more than 250 on a $22 million budget, at 94% retention. I built the agency's investment review board and hired the first in-house development and design teams anywhere in the federal government; several of those hires went on to start 18F and the U.S. Digital Service. I also negotiated the agency's first open source policy, which sounds like a footnote and took a year.
As traveling Chief of Staff to the President of Global Health at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation I spent more time in Bangladesh, Kenya, Thailand, Japan, Mexico, France, Canada, and London than at any desk. Before that I was senior advisor to Raj Shah at the Department of Agriculture, where I helped restructure the research arm into the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and recruited Roger Beachy, the first person to genetically modify a food, to run it.
I am a licensed attorney. A Juris Doctor from Penn State–Dickinson Law, a B.A. with honors in American History from Penn, and clerkships in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
Today I run The Coul & Gold Group with my partner Suzi Coul. We build instruments and advisory for executives and the Chiefs of Staff beside them, and I write The Coul & Gold Briefing every week. This past year I served as fractional Chief of Staff at Sparely, an additive manufacturing company in the Netherlands, and as a partner and spokesperson for Prime Executive Office, a search firm built around this role. I sit on the board of LIFT-DC.
I live in Arlington with my husband Allan, who is a Freedom of Information Act attorney, and our four-year-old Elliot, who opens every negotiation with "how about this" and mostly wins.
The record
- Advisory and instruments on the Chief of Staff role and executive operating architecture, built with Suzi Coul.
- Co-lead of the Chief of Staff Operating Program, a twelve-week cohort of twelve chiefs.
- Author of The Coul & Gold Briefing, published weekly at briefing.coulandgold.com.
- Executive advisory to founders and leadership teams on organizational design and operational scale-up.
- Interim leadership during transitions, including build-out of HR, IT, legal, finance, and communications functions.
- Additive manufacturing, spare parts as a service, based in the Netherlands.
- Spokesperson and thought leadership partner for an executive search firm built around the Chief of Staff role.
- Nineteenth employee hired. Built the technology organization from two people to more than 250 at 94% retention, on a $22 million budget.
- Established the agency's investment review board and hired the first in-house development and design teams in the federal government.
- Negotiated and implemented the agency's first open source policy across interagency legal review.
- Launched a government-wide Technology Fellows Program, increasing team capacity 200% in 18 months.
- Travel and program support across Bangladesh, Kenya, Thailand, Japan, Mexico, France, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
- Senior advisor to Raj Shah. Helped restructure the department's research arm into the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
- Recruited Roger Beachy as the institute's first director.
- Supported John D. Podesta as Chief of Staff to the President, and after the administration as he founded the Center for American Progress.
- Guided founders through seed rounds and built operational frameworks; grew customer bases 300% across several ventures.
- Capture strategy for government and private sector bids; rebuilt the RFP response process.
- Built the nonprofit's entire infrastructure and pitched Fortune 100 executives for funding and board support.
- Ran the campaign end to end. Highest margin victory in the race's history, with The Washington Post endorsement.
- Licensed attorney, admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar.
Read the weekly, or come argue on LinkedIn.
The Briefing is where the thinking gets worked out at length. LinkedIn is where it gets tested by people who disagree.