Trellis
Chief of Staff
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About the job
Location: London (at least 2 days/week in-person), with occasional travel
Start date: ASAP
Compensation: £50,000 – £55,000 per year starting salary dependent on experience
Role type: Full-time
Who We Are
Trellis is an early-stage EdTech startup on a mission to streamline admin and support learning. Our AI-powered platform tackles one of the biggest drivers of teacher burnout: support planning meetings and related paperwork for learners with Additional Support Needs (SEND in England). We’re backed by the Scottish Government’s innovation programme, CivTech, and Learning Directorate.
Our approach is rooted in Human-in-Command. We use secure AI as a background assistant to transcribe meetings, draft Child’s Plans compliant with government frameworks, and generate meeting minutes. We’ve already returned several hundreds of hours back to staff so they can focus on what matters most: spending time with children and families.
We’re a tight-knit team guided by our values of empathy, craftsmanship, and integrity. Having just wrapped up a highly successful pilot across 7 Scottish local authorities - scaling to 78 schools, saving teachers an average of 57 minutes per meeting write-up, and cutting document distribution times from 12 days to 5 - we are now preparing for rapid national scale-up.
The Role
This is a critical role designed to directly enable our CEO, Andy. As Chief of Staff, you will act as Andy’s force multiplier and sounding board. You’ll be laying the essential groundwork for thorny, complex commercial and operational initiatives, helping to set company strategy and turn it into structured execution. You’ll take ownership of processes that keep Trellis running smoothly, allowing Andy to focus on high-level vision, key partnerships, and leading our team.
Key Responsibilities:
- Commercial & sales operations: Do the heavy lifting on sales support - from drafting and reviewing contracts, pricing models, and data protection/compliance paperwork to prepping materials for sales pitches and partnership negotiations.
- Financial management & reviews: Work alongside our Accountant to manage financial models, run routine financial reviews, and support budget planning.
- People & Operations leadership: Partner with Andy and an HR advisor on team-wide initiatives, including recruitment, pay frameworks, team meet-ups and All Hands.
- Bids & fundraising: Lead the preparation and drafting of public sector tenders, grant applications, and equity fundraising materials.
- Governance & comms: Help prepare board decks and strategy materials, and draft key internal & external communications regarding major updates.
- Additional support: Provide high-level escalation support on customer queries when required, and help prepare or attend key industry events.
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Note: You won't have direct reports on day one, but there is scope to take on line management responsibilities as our operational structures grow, if you wish to develop in that direction.
What You Bring
We are looking for someone who combines strategic sharpness with a total lack of ego and willingness to roll their sleeves up:
- Business strategy experience: Proven track record in strategy and operations - either as a management consultant, an in-house strategy/ops lead, or an entrepreneur. (Ideally, you have a blend of consulting and startup/scale-up experience, but we’d love to hear from you if you have strong experience in just one).
- Mission alignment: You care deeply about improving education, reducing workplace stress for teachers, and building responsible, ethical AI tools.
- Unstructured problem solving: You thrive when given a complex, ambiguous problem (like navigating regional data protection rules or public procurement frameworks) and can turn it into an organised, implementable proposal fast.
- Commercial & financial acumen: Comfortable working with spreadsheets, financial models, legal contracts, and compliance frameworks.
- Communication: Outstanding written and verbal skills to build trust quickly with internal team members, government stakeholders, school leaders and funders.
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Desirable (Nice to have, but not essential): Experience working in the education system in England - whether that's through teaching, SEND support, EdTech, or education policy.
Why Join Us?
- Tangible impact: Our tool is already changing teachers' lives - reducing overtime, boosting wellbeing, and getting support to vulnerable children weeks faster.
- At the forefront of responsible AI: We’re proving that the biggest wins for AI in public services happen behind the scenes, earning national recognition and awards.
- Growth & trust: You will work directly alongside Andy (CEO), with full visibility into how an early-stage EdTech scales from 7 local authorities to full national reach.
- Values-driven culture: We run a transparent, blind hiring process, consult the team on key frameworks, and maintain high standards of integrity and psychological safety.
- Flexibility: While we value in-person collaboration at our London base in Angel (minimum 2 days/week), we are flexible about how you structure your time around project needs.
How to Apply
We run a streamlined, fair recruitment process designed to evaluate real-world skills rather than polished CVs.
- Application form: Fill out our brief application form by Sunday 6th September.
- Initial conversation: A 30-minute informal chat to discuss the role, your background, and answer any questions.
- Practical task: A short, practical exercise reflecting real Chief of Staff tasks at Trellis.
- Final interview: A deeper in-person conversation with Andy and other team members.
Trellis is committed to equality and welcomes applications from all backgrounds. We particularly encourage applications from individuals with lived experience of additional support needs / SEND in their schooling. Unfortunately we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this position.
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