Chief of Staff - Commercial Strategy

General Information

Job Title Chief of Staff - Commercial Strategy City London Country United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Division Commercial Department Sales EMEA

Description

Thought Machine’s mission is bold - to properly and permanently rid the world’s banks of legacy technology. To achieve this, we have developed the foundations of modern banking through core and payments technology which run natively in the cloud. What we are attempting is hard and means we need great people working together to build great technology.
We have grown rapidly in the past few years - growing our team to more than 550 individuals across offices in London, New York, Singapore and Sydney. We have raised more than $500m in funding and are now valued at $2.7bn. Our investors include Molten Ventures, Eurazeo, Intesa Sanpaolo, Temasek, Nyca Partners, JPMorgan Chase Strategic Investments, Standard Chartered Ventures, and more. 
We have created a culture enabling our team to produce the best work in the industry, ensuring we have fun along the way. We're regularly cited as having a fantastic workplace culture and have been recognised by Sifted magazine as having one of the highest Glassdoor ratings for a UK fintech company and the most generous employee share package in the industry. Global Finance Magazine named us one of the world’s most innovative fintechs, and the Financial Times recognised us as one of Europe’s fastest-growing companies in 2023.
The Tier 2–5 Banks division is one of Thought Machine’s fastest-growing areas, focused on bringing our core banking platform to a broad set of mid-tier and regional financial institutions.
The Chief of Staff will be a driving force behind the growth of the Tier 2–5 Banks division, helping shape strategy while ensuring it is executed with speed and impact. This role sits at the heart of our go-to-market efforts — equal parts strategic partner and execution engine — working across functions to remove barriers, sharpen our positioning, and equip the team to win new clients and scale existing relationships. We are looking for someone who has built and executed growth strategies in product-led companies, ideally as part of a go-to-market or growth team, and who thrives in environments where priorities shift quickly, hands-on action is as valuable as high-level planning, and success depends on rallying teams, building momentum, and translating great ideas into measurable commercial results.
Duties

• Drive the operational effectiveness of the division, ensuring clear planning, prioritisation, and follow-through on strategic initiatives.
• Support the Head of Division in translating strategy into execution, coordinating across Product, Commercial, Client Services, and Marketing.
• Lead the annual and quarterly planning processes, setting objectives, defining KPIs, and tracking delivery against goals.
• Strengthen the front of the sales process by partnering with Product Marketing and Sales to refine positioning, messaging, and go-to-market collateral for Tier 2–5 banks.
• Develop and maintain dashboards, reports, and frameworks to measure pipeline health, sales effectiveness, and revenue delivery.
• Act as a connector between teams, removing bottlenecks and rallying resources to accelerate progress.
• Prepare materials and briefings for the Head of Division, including client-facing engagements, industry bodies and conferences, and board presentations. 
• Step in where needed to fill capability gaps or accelerate initiatives — whether it’s coordinating a launch plan, refining a playbook, or aligning stakeholders.

Requirements

Essential

• Experience in product companies within financial services, fintech, or enterprise technology.
• Proven experience working at the intersection of product, commercial, and go-to-market functions, including roadmaps, launches, and market-facing strategy.
• Track record in growth environments where adaptability, pace, and hands-on execution were critical to success.
• Strong commercial acumen with exposure to mid-tier/regional banks or a similar client base.  
• Excellent programme management skills — able to juggle multiple priorities and keep cross-functional teams aligned.
• Collaborative leadership style where you are able to influence without authority, build trust, and rally teams around common goals.

Desirable

• Previous Chief of Staff or strategic operations experience in a growth-stage company.
• Product marketing or sales enablement experience, especially at the front of the sales process.
• Experience working with global teams across multiple time zones.
• Technical background or knowledge would be advantageous. 

Benefits

• Highly competitive salary
• Pension plan (match up to 5%)
• Life insurance - three times annual salary 
• Competitive maternity (six months fully paid) and paternity leave (four weeks fully paid)  
• Shared parental leave (matched to our maternity leave for the same point in time)
• 25 days holiday and bank holidays 
• Flexible working hours
• Cycle-to-work scheme 
• Electric car scheme
• Season ticket loan 
• Access to outstanding learning materials and courses
• Sports and hobby clubs, subsidised by Thought Machine 
• All the latest tech you need
• Start the day properly with fresh fruit and cereals 
• Huge range of healthy (and not-so-healthy) snacks, smoothies and drinks
• A talented and experienced team as your colleagues
• An environment where we encourage learning and progress
• Two charity days a year 
• Weekly food pop-up 

Thought Machine is committed to making a measurable positive impact on people's everyday lives. We are an equal-opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. 
We actively hire candidates who demonstrate technical excellence in their field and welcome people of all ages and backgrounds, providing everyone with equal access to professional development. You are encouraged to apply even if your experience doesn't accurately match the job description. We also encourage applications from those with different abilities, including candidates with ADHD, autism, dyslexia or dyspraxia.