After more than two years as the Chief of Staff, Rahim is moving to a different role as the Head of Growth and Strategy at Shamiri Institute. Throughout his time as Chief of Staff, Rahim would often get questions about what a Chief of Staff does, why an organization might benefit from having a Chief of Staff, and advice for others interested in or starting similar roles. In this blog piece, Rahim shares his perspective on these questions and more.
What was your journey to becoming the Chief of Staff at Shamiri?
I have always enjoyed working on complex and diverse challenges and would say I’m a generalist rather than a specialist at anything. Before joining Shamiri, I worked at BBI in London, managing their health and social care network of NHS and local government partners focused on social determinants of health. This meant I was researching to find solutions to population health problems affecting physical and mental health in communities. These problems ranged from poor housing and education to digital exclusion and loneliness. This experience helped me develop competence across a range of knowledge areas which in retrospect enhanced my abilities as a generalist and served as a good warm-up for the Chief of Staff role. I came across Shamiri when I was writing a paper about grassroots mental health interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa for my Master's program and they happened to be recruiting for a Chief of Staff role.
It's a cool job title, but what does a Chief of Staff do?
Whatever needs doing! Chiefs of Staff work with (and where needed independently of) the CEO to recognize where they can add the most value. During my time at Shamiri, this meant that I was involved in high-level strategic initiatives like building and implementing an organization-wide strategic plan and KPIs; aiding with fundraising efforts to expand our pipeline of funding; and leading recruitment (from skills gap analyses to Superdays) for some of our most important roles. There were also management responsibilities – leading the Founder’s Office and Leadership team on the CEO’s behalf, supervising other teams within the organization, and taking on HR responsibilities. I oversaw projects like rural expansion of our programming in Western Kenya, our expansion to over 25k students in 2023 from 4k in 2022 and organized our annual Shamiri Summit last year. There were also things I took on that I had no background or experience with like building a financial model to help us understand our cost per student, cash flow sequencing, and other ‘special projects’.
When I first started the role, it definitely took a few weeks to learn the ins and outs of how Shamiri operated and to find a fit in the role. I think this is normal for any new role, as much as you want to hit the ground running, there is a danger of taking on too much too soon without first developing an understanding of what needs doing. I spent my first week meeting with members of the Leadership team and had one-on-ones with people in different teams to understand what they worked on, what was working well, and where there were barriers or challenges. This helped me understand the landscape of the organization. Once I was settled, it became easier to take on some of the unwritten Chief of Staff duties like recognizing where gaps needed to be filled (either by me or delegating to others) before they developed/grew, problem solving issues before they were escalated to the CEO, and having a point of view distinct from the CEO that allowed me to challenge him where needed. These unwritten duties are significant in being able to unlock greater operational efficiency and wider insights for the organization that helped us learn and grow. There were also fun tasks like organizing regular wellness activities and socials that build organizational culture.
What are special projects?
Special projects are arguably the most exciting part of the Chief of Staff role. They are initiatives that don’t fall under the remit of any one team in an organization and instead may require input from multiple teams or may be solo missions when there is not any existing knowledge. Sometimes these special projects can conclude quickly when there isn’t a way forward (not viewed as failures at Shamiri but instead incredibly important learning exercises) and sometimes they can result in new projects being actualized. One of the special projects at Shamiri this year was the Shamiri Academy. What started as a special project has evolved into the Shamiri Academy having its own team dedicated to training the next generation of mental health caregivers in Africa. The Academy was borne out of an idea to contribute to the strengthening of the mental health workforce, and we are proud to be enrolling the first cohort of students on a Diploma course in Mental Health in January 2025.
It sounds like the relationship with the CEO is the key to the role?
Yes, it’s definitely important to have a positive working relationship with the CEO because the Chief of Staff is a thought partner and someone they need to be able to trust completely. Of course, this happens over time and there is continuous learning that both a CEO and Chief of Staff need to do about the others’ contexts, working patterns, and communication styles. I think one of the ways in which Tom was able to learn about me was to ‘disappear’. He would assign a project to me, set the context for what needed to be done, then give me the autonomy to get it done how I saw best. This helped both of us to build trust in one another and led me being trusted to being able to make org-wide decisions in his absence.
Another key aspect in developing the relationship was being able to get to know one another outside of the workplace. Building trust and creating shared vulnerability are important across the organization and it is no different for those in the Senior Leadership team at Shamiri. Being able to share a meal or watch football together outside of the office deepens the relationship between a CEO and Chief of Staff.
Is the role the same as it was when you joined Shamiri?
No. As Shamiri has grown, my role has changed, and this has been the case for many people in the organization. In 2022, when I joined, we had 15 full time members of staff and were serving 4,000 students a year. This year we’re at almost 50 full time members of staff and have served more than 100,000 students.
One of the core values at Shamiri is being nimble and adapting to new priorities. Shamirians take on new projects and tasks at regular intervals to account for changing circumstances. When I first joined Shamiri, we didn’t have specialists in areas like communications, events, government relations and more which meant I had to take on management of these areas without having expertise. As we hired specialists for these roles, I was able to spend more time on program management, strategy, and fundraising.
As the team has grown with evolving organizational needs, we have (alongside hiring specialists) implemented systems and processes to ensure that the organization is well positioned to continue to scale its work. We value nimbleness on both an individual and organizational level and this has led to a splitting up of the Chief of Staff responsibilities among three roles going forward so that we can have dedicated personnel thinking about strategy and growth; special projects; and people. Shamiri is in a different place than when I was first hired, and it only makes sense that at regular intervals we continue to adapt to plan for current and future needs while keeping in mind our north star of reaching 1m by 2027.
Did you enjoy your time as the Chief of Staff?
Absolutely but it was not without its challenges. Initially, I think there was skepticism about the value-add of the role and concerns that it would be a bottleneck in decision-making. This naturally takes time to change and to ‘prove’ that a Chief of Staff can be an enabler and actually speed up decision-making rather than slow it down.
I hadn’t had previous experience as a Chief of Staff so there was some imposter syndrome for the first few weeks/months. I was worried about how to manage the sizable workload, not meeting expectations, and letting people down. With the ever-changing nature of the job, I think I kept some of that imposter syndrome right up to my last day but hope I didn’t let too many people down!
Leadership roles in any organization can be lonely. You can be without peers that truly understand what you do. That said, I was able to develop friendships with interns and associates (a product of Shamirians being friendly and welcoming people!) as easily as I was able to with, directors so I hope I didn’t miss out on too much fun.
Advice for others interested in a Chief of Staff role? Key attributes.
No two Chiefs of Staff roles are the same. I imagine the role at Shamiri could be completely different to one in another youth mental health organization. That said, I think there are some attributes that would serve one well in a Chief of Staff (or similar) role. Being able to work independently with little to no oversight and be humble about it (get work done behind the scenes that few people or no one knows about) will build trust between you and your CEO. Having a strategic mindset is important, you want to be proactive rather than reactive to potential challenges and take the time to craft well-thought through solutions. Finally, being confident enough to speak your mind and disagree with your CEO is crucial to becoming thought partners.
