About Ropes & Gray
Ropes & Gray LLP is a preeminent global law firm focused on providing the highest-quality advice on our clients’ critical legal and business issues. Our global team of 2,500 talented professionals regularly helps clients meet high-stakes challenges, solve complex problems and achieve key goals. These colleagues work together across a global office network that includes offices in Boston, Chicago, Hong Kong, London, New York, San Francisco, Seoul, Shanghai, Silicon Valley, Tokyo, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
We are a contemporary firm that can bring more than 150 years of legal and institutional history to bear on the challenges clients face in today’s 24/7 global business environment. Our collaborative approach gives our clients—which include many of the world’s most respected companies and institutions—ready access to leading corporate, litigation, transactional and regulatory lawyers whose knowledge and experience span industries and geographies.
With an international presence, we focus on a number of key industries, including private equity; asset management; life sciences and health care; investment banking; technology, media and telecommunications; and consumer and retail. Our clients include global industry leaders, financial institutions, investment firms, private equity firms, hospitals and health care organizations, educational institutions, and individuals.
We have consistently been recognized for our leading practices in many areas, including private equity, M&A, finance, asset management, real estate, tax, antitrust, life sciences, health care, intellectual property, litigation & enforcement, privacy & cybersecurity, and business restructuring.
Ropes & Gray is an equal opportunity employer.
Our Impact
The American Lawyer crowned Ropes & Gray “Law Firm of the Year” in 2022, ranked it #1 on its prestigious “A-List,” and named it one of its “Kings of the Hill” on the 2022 Am Law 100—a ranking of the most powerful law firms. Collectively, these honors reflect Ropes & Gray’s leading market position. Ropes & Gray is among the fastest-growing, most profitable and most prestigious law firms in the world. Its success is measured in its exceptional financial performance, an expansive pro bono program, consistent firmwide attorney satisfaction, and a deep commitment to racial diversity and gender equity.
Clients trust the firm with their most important matters because they know Ropes & Gray’s lawyers and business support understand their businesses and deliver the results they need. The firm’s attorneys and world-class business support have built a stellar reputation. They deliver clients with high-quality work, take a pragmatic approach, and demonstrate impeccable standards of service and ethics. The firm counts many of the world’s most respected companies and institutions as its longtime clients.
Operating in the most dynamic financial centers around the world, Ropes & Gray serves organizations at all stages of development, as well as investors and individuals. With 1,500 attorneys spanning 17 time zones, teams collaborate seamlessly from North America, Europe and Asia to provide clients with the high-quality representation and uncompromising, round-the-clock service that have made Ropes & Gray a global leader.
Job Summary
The Chief of Staff to the Chair and Managing Partner (“Chief of Staff”) is an exciting opportunity for an exceptional individual to meaningfully contribute to Ropes & Gray’s differentiated strengths by supporting engaged and authentic leadership; driving operational excellence, and fostering an inclusive, collegial culture.
The Chief of Staff’s key responsibility is advancing the Chair and Managing Partner’s priorities and values, both independently and as a member of project teams. Paramount for success are strong organizational and project management skills, commitment to internal and external client service, and a high degree of drive, initiative and judgment.
Primary Responsibilities
- Serve as a trusted adviser to the Chair and Managing Partner, staying current on a wide range of topics, including industry intel, cultural trends and relevant thought leadership. Contribute ideas and propose change for the betterment of the firm.
- Promote the Chair and Managing Partner’s vision to the broader firm, to strengthen connectivity and ensure both alignment with and productive action toward Ropes & Gray’s core business and strategic goals.
- Engage in the Chair and Managing Partner’s wide-ranging priorities related to communications, operational matters, financial results, and strategy. Enable the Chair and Managing Partner to deliver against their agendas by recommending and setting priorities, working and communicating on their behalf, leveraging tools for tracking projects and workstreams, fielding inquiries as their proxy, and conveying requests and feedback to teams across the firm.
- Act as “eyes and ears” for firm leadership, proactively looking around corners to ensure that they have relevant information and are well prepared for anything they are slated to lead/deliver.
- Under the guidance of the Chair, plan Firm’s management committee meeting content and liaise with management committee members. Leverage the unique vantage point of this role to recommend important and timely topics. Own meeting design and development, including preparing speakers, alerting stakeholders, identifying support resources, reviewing materials, capturing post-meeting deliverables and applying learnings to future action. When appropriate, recommend topics and design agendas for Practice Group Leader (PGL) or other meetings based on known Chair and Managing Partner priorities.
- Synthesize the most important elements of the Chair and Managing Partner’s vision, values and priorities to support a communication cascade throughout the firm. Work with Marketing Communications team to develop internal and external communications that reflect Chair and Managing Partner’s objectives and voice, such as remarks for standing partner meetings. Incorporate known leader priorities and communication preferences and advise on final product.
- Lead and participate in distinct initiatives commissioned by firm leadership. As project manager or team member, help define and prioritize objectives, meet with stakeholders, source and analyze data, coordinate participants, monitor milestones, drive progress against plan and provide updates to sponsors and other relevant leaders. Keep Chair and Managing Partner informed on significant high-impact annual processes, including performance evaluations and year-end compensation.
Education, Experience, And Essential Capabilities Required
- Bachelor’s degree with 10+ years of experience in professional services, financial services, strategy, or consulting environment as Chief of Staff, Business Director or similar roles supporting executive leadership. Master’s degree a plus but not required.
- High level of professional maturity and integrity, demonstrable good judgment in sensitive and/or complex situations and unwavering discretion with confidential information, i.e. “a vault.”
- Ability to forge strong relationships and inspire trust quickly, collaborative work style, persuasive and influential at the executive level, and proven ability to manage and follow-through on situations and/or events successfully across business units, levels, and regions, i.e., “high EQ.”
- Excellent verbal and written business communication skills with extensive experience creating presentations, visual and verbal.
- Ability to compile, review, analyze and synthesize data – financial, demographic or otherwise – to determine logical conclusions or provide recommendations based on data and information that is varied in context, content, and format. Self-starter with a high level of initiative and a bias for action who takes ownership, prioritizes, manages multiple complex and time-sensitive projects, and can meet competing deadlines with little guidance or oversight; ability to bring together multiple stakeholders to help drive decision; eager to learn through hands-on hard work and adapting to new responsibilities, i.e. “a doer”.
- Demonstrated ability to solve problems or propose solutions with creativity, innovation, and confidence; ability to see opportunities within, and form structure out of, ambiguity. Thriving in an ambiguous environment and a penchant for bold thinking is a must. Opportunity-spot across the firm by recommending improvements. Regularly evaluate the efficiency of procedures that merit the Chair and Managing Partner’s involvement according to firm objectives and apply improvement.
- Positive energy, sense of humor and confident, can-do attitude.
- Low ego, openness to feedback and commitment to excellence.
- Ability to travel with firm leadership as needed, offering on-the-ground support.
