Building the infrastructure that lets founders and executives scale.
Technology businesses operate on a fundamentally different clock. What takes a traditional business years to accomplish, a well-funded startup expects to achieve in quarters. Enterprise technology companies manage complexity across global product organizations, sales teams spanning continents, and engineering cultures that resist traditional management structures. In both contexts, the principals at the top need operational support that matches the speed and ambition of the business.
Blackbook places the operational and leverage talent that makes that possible: Executive Assistants who can keep pace with founders who work around the clock, Chiefs of Staff who bring order to organizations that are growing faster than their structures can support, and operational leaders who build the systems that allow the business to scale without breaking.
The companies we work with
Our technology practice spans two distinct but related environments. Enterprise technology companies: established, scaled businesses with complex organizational structures, global operations, and leadership teams that need sophisticated operational support. And hyper-growth companies: venture-backed businesses scaling rapidly, where the operational infrastructure is being built in real time alongside the product and the team.
We work with companies from Series B through to public, and with the founders, CEOs, and C-suite executives who need the right people around them to operate at the level the business demands.
The technology sector presents unique challenges for operational talent. The culture tends to be less hierarchical than financial services, which means support professionals need to earn their influence rather than relying on organizational structure. The pace of change is constant, which means adaptability matters more than process adherence. And the talent market is competitive, which means the best people have options and need to be genuinely courted.
Why technology environments require specialist search
A Chief of Staff at a Series C startup is solving different problems than a Chief of Staff at a private equity firm. They are building processes that do not yet exist, managing a founder who may be simultaneously product visionary, chief salesperson, and primary fundraiser, and operating in an environment where the organizational chart changes every few months.
An Executive Assistant to a technology CEO needs to manage a world that spans board meetings, product reviews, investor updates, all-hands presentations, and a travel schedule that often covers multiple continents in a single week. They need to be technologically fluent, culturally aligned with the business, and able to operate with a level of autonomy that many traditional support environments do not require.
Finding people who can do this well, and who have done it before in comparable environments, requires a search firm that understands how technology companies operate and where the best operational talent sits.
The roles we place
Executive Assistants to founders, CEOs, CTOs, and C-suite leadership teams. Chiefs of Staff who serve as the operational right hand to the CEO, owning cross-functional coordination, strategic initiatives, and the operating cadence of the business. COOs and operational leaders who build and manage the infrastructure: people operations, finance, legal, and the systems that allow the business to function at scale.
We also place Business Operations professionals, Strategy & Operations leaders, and Office of the CEO talent across the full range of functions that support executive leadership in technology environments.
Our process for technology mandates
Technology searches require speed without sacrificing quality. The market moves fast, and the best candidates are often fielding multiple opportunities simultaneously. We run a retained process that is rigorous but efficient, with clear timelines and consistent communication.
Every search begins with a detailed understanding of the company, the principal, and the specific operating environment. In technology, this includes understanding the stage of the business, the funding trajectory, the culture, and the leadership dynamics. A Chief of Staff at a founder-led Series B looks nothing like a Chief of Staff at a public enterprise software company, and the brief needs to reflect that.
Blackbook Assess is adapted for technology contexts, testing candidates in scenarios that reflect the pace, ambiguity, and multi-stakeholder complexity of technology environments.
Where we operate
Our technology mandates span the major technology hubs across the US and UK: San Francisco, New York, Austin, Seattle, Los Angeles, Boston, and London, with additional activity in other cities where technology leadership teams are increasingly based, including Miami, Denver, and Chicago.
If you are hiring operational or leverage talent for a technology company, whether enterprise or hyper-growth, we would welcome a conversation. We understand the specific demands of technology environments and bring a search process calibrated to that context.
Get in touch to discuss your requirements.