Head - Founder's Office

Head – Founder's Office

Strategy | Growth | Corporate Development | Special Projects

About Ethara AI

Ethara.AI is an AI research company at the forefront of post-training intelligence. It specializes in designing reinforcement learning environments, human feedback systems, benchmark datasets, and evaluation pipelines that enable frontier AI models to move beyond memorization toward reasoning, planning, and autonomous action. Through its Reinforcement Learning as a Service (RLaaS) platform, Ethara.AI partners with frontier AI labs and enterprises to train intelligent systems capable of operating in complex real-world environments.

This is not a traditional Chief of Staff role.

This is a builder's role.

About the Role

You will operate at the intersection of strategy, execution, growth, partnerships, commercial operations, investor relations, legal coordination, founder enablement, and organizational excellence.

One day you could be negotiating a contract.

The next, preparing the founder for an investor meeting.

Later that evening, reviewing a strategic partnership agreement, aligning marketing on a research launch, closing a university partnership, and redesigning an internal operating process.

You will own problems—not functions.

You will be expected to think like a founder, communicate like a consultant, negotiate like a business leader, and execute with relentless attention to detail.

What You'll Own

Founder Office

• Act as the strategic right hand to the founders.
• Drive execution across the company's highest-priority initiatives.
• Convert strategic discussions into executable plans.
• Ensure complete alignment across business functions.
• Anticipate founder requirements before they arise.
• Drive cross-functional accountability with minimal supervision.

Business Strategy

• Identify new markets, expansion opportunities, and strategic growth initiatives.
• Conduct commercial due diligence and competitive intelligence.
• Build business cases for new product lines and market expansion.
• Lead special projects directly sponsored by the founders.
• Solve complex business problems with structured thinking.

Enterprise Growth & Partnerships

• Own strategic enterprise relationships from first conversation through commercial closure.
• Build partnerships with Fortune 500 companies, governments, universities, ecosystem partners, venture funds, and technology companies.
• Structure high-value commercial partnerships.
• Represent Ethara AI during executive-level negotiations.

Corporate Development

• Support fundraising initiatives.
• Build investor decks, board presentations, and strategic narratives.
• Coordinate investor due diligence.
• Maintain relationships with investors, advisors, and strategic stakeholders.
• Support M&A evaluations, strategic alliances, and ecosystem expansion opportunities.

Commercial & Legal

• Review and negotiate NDAs, MSAs, SOWs, partnership agreements, procurement documents, and commercial contracts.
• Work closely with external legal counsel to mitigate contractual and commercial risks.
• Develop scalable contracting frameworks and commercial governance processes.
• Ensure legal awareness across enterprise engagements.

Marketing & Brand

• Oversee founder branding and executive thought leadership.
• Guide company positioning across digital and offline channels.
• Review marketing campaigns through a business lens.
• Oversee LinkedIn strategy, executive communication, PR opportunities, and strategic content.
• Ensure consistent messaging across every customer touchpoint.

Client & Executive Relationships

• Build trusted relationships with CXOs and enterprise decision-makers.
• Lead executive presentations and strategic workshops.
• Handle sensitive commercial conversations.
• Resolve high-impact customer escalations.

Operational Excellence

• Build systems before they become necessary.
• Design scalable business processes.
• Establish KPIs, dashboards, reporting structures, and operating rhythms.
• Use AI extensively to improve organizational efficiency.
• Continuously eliminate operational bottlenecks.

Who You Are

You are the person founders trust with their hardest problems.

You have exceptional business judgment.

You communicate with precision.

You learn faster than most people.

You are comfortable switching between boardrooms, spreadsheets, legal agreements, investor conversations, and enterprise negotiations—often within the same day.

You don't wait for instructions.

You create clarity where none exists.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree from a Tier-1 institution (IIT, IIM, ISB, BITS Pilani, top Delhi University colleges, NITs, or equivalent global universities).
• 4-7 years of experience in Consulting, Venture Capital, Investment Banking, Corporate Strategy, Founder's Office, Enterprise Sales, or high-growth technology startups.
• Previous experience working directly with founders, CXOs, or leadership teams.

Required Skills

Strategic Thinking

• Corporate strategy
• Business model design
• Market expansion
• Competitive intelligence
• Financial reasoning
• Structured problem solving

Commercial Excellence

• Enterprise sales
• Deal structuring
• Commercial negotiations
• Pricing strategy
• Partnership development
• Revenue growth

Legal Understanding

• Commercial contracts
• NDAs
• MSAs
• SOWs
• Procurement processes
• Vendor agreements
• Risk identification
• Corporate governance fundamentals

Communication

Communication must be exceptional.

You should be able to:

• Write board-level documents.
• Build investor presentations.
• Lead CXO conversations.
• Represent founders externally.
• Present complex ideas with clarity.
• Negotiate confidently with enterprise stakeholders.

Marketing & Brand

• Executive branding
• Thought leadership
• Corporate communications
• Social media oversight
• PR coordination
• Narrative building

Leadership

• Extreme ownership
• High agency
• Decision-making under ambiguity
• Cross-functional influence
• Project execution
• Operational discipline
• Stakeholder management

AI Fluency (Non-Negotiable)

This role requires someone who is genuinely AI-native. We are not looking for someone who simply uses ChatGPT for writing emails—we are looking for someone who leverages AI as a force multiplier for thinking, execution, research, coding, and business operations.

The ideal candidate should be comfortable working with modern AI tools and continuously adopt emerging technologies into their daily workflow.

Expected AI Competencies

• Understanding LLMs, Post Training and Reinforcement learning.
• Aptitude for reading and comprehending AI research.
• Advanced prompting and workflow design across frontier LLMs.
• Hands-on experience with Claude, Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, ChatGPT, Gemini, and equivalent AI platforms.
• Ability to use AI for strategic research, business analysis, market intelligence, competitive benchmarking, and executive decision support.
• Build AI-assisted workflows for operations, documentation, project management, and business execution.
• Demonstrated curiosity and experimentation with emerging AI products and productivity tools.
• Ability to identify repetitive workflows and redesign them using AI-first approaches.

Bonus Points

• Experience building internal AI agents or automations.
• Familiarity with tools such as n8n, Zapier, Make, Langflow, Flowise, or similar orchestration platforms.
• Experience integrating APIs, AI SDKs, or no-code/low-code AI workflows.
• Understanding of RAG, vector databases, AI evaluation, prompt engineering, and AI governance.
• Active contributor to the AI ecosystem through writing, open-source contributions, community engagement, or experimentation.

Our Expectation

We expect AI to be your default way of working—not an occasional productivity tool. The right candidate continuously explores new models, questions existing workflows, automates repetitive work, and uses AI to amplify both strategic thinking and execution.

What Makes Someone Exceptional in This Role

The ideal candidate has the analytical depth of a consultant, the commercial instinct of an enterprise sales leader, the execution discipline of a Chief of Staff, the communication skills of an executive advisor, the legal awareness of a commercial negotiator, and the urgency of a startup founder.

They can seamlessly transition between strategy, fundraising, partnerships, enterprise negotiations, legal discussions, marketing reviews, and organizational execution without losing context or momentum.

This Role Is Not For You If

• You need clearly defined responsibilities.
• You prefer functional ownership over company-wide impact.
• You are uncomfortable with ambiguity.
• You require constant direction.
• You avoid difficult conversations.
• You struggle to prioritize under pressure.
• You see problems and wait for someone else to solve them.

We'd Love to Meet You If

You are relentlessly curious, intellectually rigorous, commercially sharp, and obsessed with execution.

You are equally comfortable discussing AI strategy with enterprise CEOs, reviewing commercial agreements with legal teams, refining investor narratives, building strategic partnerships, and helping founders make better decisions.

If you are looking for a role that compounds your learning, influence, and impact every single day, this is that opportunity.