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Become the right hand of the founders and the operational backbone of one of Europe's fastest-moving energy-tech startups.

As Chief of Staff at Powernaut, you are the right hand of the founders and the operational backbone of a fast-growing company. Your mission is to free the founders to spend their time on what only they can do (strategy, fundraising, product vision, top-of-funnel sales) by absorbing, structuring, or delegating everything else.

You move between strategic projects, operational ownership, finance, and executive support. One week you're running due diligence on a new market; the next, you're rebuilding the company-wide OKR cycle, closing the monthly financials, prepping the board deck, or sitting in on a customer escalation. You bring order to chaos, rhythm to a fast-moving team, and leverage to two founders.

You operate with high autonomy, working with the founders to shape strategic decisions and keep our collective efforts aligned with Powernaut's ambitious vision.

Here's what your impactful role will entail:

• Strategic projects: Own end-to-end the projects that don't yet have an owner: market entry analyses, pricing studies, fundraising preparation, regulatory deep-dives, board-level investigations. You scope, run, and either ship or hand off.
• Finance ownership: Run financial planning, budgeting and cash management. Work with our accountant and external advisors on monthly close, board financials, and the path to next-round metrics. Own investor reporting, the data room, and the financial narrative we tell.
• Operational cadence: Design and run the company's operating rhythm: quarterly planning, OKRs, weekly reviews, all-hands, board prep. Add scalable processes where today there is improvisation, while preserving speed where improvisation still wins.
• Founders' leverage: Sit in on the meetings the founders cannot prepare for. Pre-read, prioritise, brief, follow up. Act as a trusted sounding board and a decisive filter on inbound asks.
• Automation mindset: You automate your own work, your processes, and the company's repetitive operations wherever it makes sense. You do the rest yourself, or hire someone if the business case is there to do so. You will be measured on leverage, not hours.
• Business operations & legal: Coordinate the non-engineering back-office: HR, legal, subsidies, corporate compliance, vendor management. Partner with external advisors and internal owners to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.
• Hiring leverage: Partner with the founders on key hires: writing roles, sourcing, running first-round filters, and owning offer logistics. As we scale, this becomes a real hiring engine.
• Cross-functional glue: Be the connective tissue between Product, Engineering, Go-to-Market, Delivery, and Account Management. Surface misalignment early, broker decisions, keep the team rowing in the same direction.

A few examples of what your week might include:

• Running a one-day deep-dive on whether to enter a new country market.
• Building an automation that removes a recurring weekly burden from the team.
• Closing the monthly financial review and prepping the next board update.
• Sitting between Legal and Finance to close an investor side-letter.
• Catching the operational debt nobody else has flagged.

The actual mix shifts week to week. That is the job.

We're looking for an operator who combines top-tier analytical rigour with hands-on execution, and who is energised rather than overwhelmed by ambiguity.

Requirements

• Experience: Two routes in. (a) 5+ years in a high-performance environment: top-tier consulting, private equity, venture capital, a high-growth scale-up CoS or BizOps role, or a founder / early-operator track record. OR (b) a recent graduate from a strong program with a demonstrable drive to learn at founder pace and a track record (academic, extracurricular, internships) that suggests you will punch well above your weight from day one. Climate-tech or energy-sector exposure is a strong plus, not a requirement.
• Structured thinking: Proven ability to take a sprawling, ambiguous problem and turn it into a clear plan, a sharp document, and a decision. You write well and you write tight.
• Finance fluency: Comfortable with budgets, cash flow, runway models, investor reporting, and the basics of corporate finance. You can read a balance sheet without translation.
• Operational backbone: A track record of designing and running scalable processes (OKRs, planning cadences, hiring loops, board reporting) in a fast-moving environment.
• Automation-first: You reach for automation before headcount. You're fluent enough with modern tools, scripts, and AI to remove repetitive work from your own plate first, and from the rest of the company next. When automation isn't the answer, you hire.
• Comfort with ambiguity: You don't need a job description to know what to do next. Equally comfortable owning a strategic memo for the CEO and chasing down a missing invoice.
• Founder fit: Discreet, low ego, high agency. You can disagree with the founders behind closed doors and align publicly.
• Language Skills: English is required. Any other European language is a bonus.
• Cultural Fit: You fit our Powernaut values, powering up our constellation with your passion, customer excellence drive, and team mindset while pushing your own and others' boundaries.
• Location: Based in or willing to relocate to Ghent. Hybrid setup, with at least 3 days per week in the Wintercircus office to stay close to the founders.

What's in it for you?

• Impact: The highest-leverage non-engineering seat in the company. Your work compounds directly into Powernaut's trajectory.
• Founder access: Daily, unfiltered contact with both founders. The fastest learning environment we can offer.
• Autonomy: The freedom to manage your own priorities, with the tools and support you need to excel.
• Team: Become an integral part of a dynamic, expert team of quick-thinking, fast-acting individuals who are passionate about what they do.
• Compensation: A competitive salary package complemented by meaningful participation in our attractive stock option plan.
• Purpose: The profound satisfaction of making a meaningful and lasting positive impact on our planet by accelerating the climate transition.
• Environment: Work from the Wintercircus in Ghent, a hub that fits the spirit of a fast-growing, innovative startup.

Powered by cosmic ambition, we’re relentlessly driven towards a sustainable future.

Building stellar products, always putting customers at the centre of our universe.

We stay in close orbit, fostering warm, fun, and cheerful collaboration and communication.

Tackling any challenge with light-speed agility.