Overview
We’re looking for a passionate Chief of Staff for our Chief Technology Officer & EVP, Products & AI, Nishchay Shah.
Nishchay wears several hats: P&L and business owner of Paperpal, and the driving force behind the organisation’s product and AI direction. He leads a large team of experts working in product management & marketing, software development, UX, DevOps, Digital innovation, and Machine Learning.
As a Chief of Staff to Nishchay, you will turn strategy into action by connecting the right people and keeping initiatives moving seamlessly. You will thrive in this role if you understand the various drivers & levers of business, enjoy working with people, are a tech enthusiast and have a knack of getting things done. So, if you’re someone who excels at the intersection of strategy and execution, and you get energy from making an entire organization run better, let's chat!
CACTUS is a remote-first organization and we embrace an accelerate from anywhere culture. You may choose to work from home in Mumbai; however, you will be required to travel to our Andheri East office for business requirements, meetings, or company/team events, or on short notice as needed.
Responsibilities
- Drive the organization’s operating cadence and ensure effective execution through structured meetings, tracking, and follow-ups.
- Act as the central hub for data, partnering with Finance and BI to track key metrics, budgets, and business health.
- Support leadership with high-quality pre-reads, presentations, and decision-making materials.
- Maintain visibility across initiatives and teams, ensuring clarity on ownership, progress, and priorities.
- Lead OKR cycles end-to-end and drive accountability by unblocking issues and pushing decisions forward.
- Navigate stakeholder dynamics, align cross-functional teams, and act as a bridge between leadership and the organization.
- Own communication and external engagement, including presentations, strategic narratives, partnerships, and special projects.
Qualifications and Prerequisites
Must-Haves
- 5+ years of experience in program management, strategy, consulting, or a chief-of-staff-type role in digital product businesses.
- Exceptional project management skills; you live and breathe timelines, dependencies, and deliverables. Tools like Jira, Asana, or Notion are second nature.
- Advanced Excel/Google Sheets skills, pivot tables, lookups, data modelling, dashboards. You don’t just use spreadsheets, you think in them.
- Comfort working closely with Finance, you can track budgets, understand P&L basics, and pull together the numbers needed for decisions.
- Outstanding presentation design skills, you can take a messy brief and turn it into a crisp, visually compelling deck in PowerPoint, or any other decks.
- Strong oratory and communication skills, you can hold a room, tell a story, and make complex things simple.
- Proven ability to influence without authority, you get things done through relationships, not reporting lines.
- Relentless follow-through. You don’t just start things, you finish them.
Good to have
- Experience in edtech, SaaS, or academic publishing.
- Familiarity with OKR frameworks and strategic planning methodologies.
- Comfort with data, able to pull insights from dashboards, analytics tools, and raw data sets.
- A curious, exploratory mindset, you’re the kind of person who reads widely, connects dots others miss, and always has a “what if” question ready.
- Prior experience working directly with a CEO, CTO, or senior executive in a high-growth environment.
Application Process
Before applying, please ensure you meet the role requirements listed above and have legal authorization to work in the country where this role is advertised. Our selection process typically involves an initial screening by a recruiter, a technical assessment, and two to three interview rounds. For this role, you will have a recruiter screening round followed by a technical discussion and HRBP round.
Equal Opportunity
Our hiring practices reflect our commitment to providing equal opportunities and creating an environment where everyone can thrive, develop, and succeed. We celebrate the uniqueness of our team members and prohibit discrimination of any kind, based on race, color, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, or any other protected characteristic.
Accelerating from Anywhere
As a remote-first organization, these are essential attributes we look for in all our candidates.
- Taking ownership of your work with minimal supervision, showing strong ability to organize, prioritize and deliver results independently.
- Documenting work that brings everyone on the same page.
- Maturity to choose between synchronous and asynchronous collaboration.
- Effectively collaborating with colleagues across different time zones by setting dedicated hours for collaboration and keeping team members updated through your MS Teams status.
About CACTUS
Established in 2002, Cactus Communications (cactusglobal.com) is a leading technology company that specializes in expert services and AI-driven products which improve how research gets funded, published, communicated, and discovered. Its flagship brand Editage offers a comprehensive suite of researcher solutions, including expert services and cutting-edge AI products like Mind the Graph, Paperpal, and R Discovery. With offices in Princeton, London, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul, Tokyo, and Mumbai and a global workforce of over 3,000 experts, CACTUS is a pioneer in workplace best practices and has been consistently recognized as a great place to work.
