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Chief of Staff Association acquires Vannin Chief of Staff to add recruitment and fractional capability

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASENew York, London, Melbourne | 21 January, 2026The Chief of Staff Association (CSA) today announced that it has acquired Vannin Chief of Staff. This expands CSA’s offering to include specialist chief of staff recruitment, alongside fractional chief of staff capability.The acquisition comes as the chief of staff role expands rapidly across sectors including finance and technology. Leaders are operating in environments defined by complexity, faster decision cycles, and heightened expectations for execution. Chiefs of staff provide operating leverage by shaping priorities, strengthening executive rhythm, and enabling better decision-making across functions.The chief of staff role is growing quickly. Around 65% of Fortune 500 chief executives now have a chief of staff. One in four Series B start-ups do as well.Yet the role remains unevenly defined and inconsistently embedded. Many organisations still recruit without clear role architecture, assessment standards, or success measures. This creates avoidable friction in hiring, onboarding, and performance evaluation.CSA’s acquisition of Vannin is designed to close this practical gap by combining role definition, structured assessment, and recruitment with CSA’s education and certification model.With Vannin now inside the CSA, the Association will offer an integrated model that links:
  • Evidence-based education and certification
  • Role architecture and clearer hiring signals
  • Specialist recruitment and fractional support
  • Structured assessment and ongoing development
This supports CEOs and boards to hire with confidence. It also supports chiefs of staff with clearer expectations, stronger onboarding, and development pathways that match the realities of the role.CEOs and executive teams benefit through stronger executive support, reduced friction across functions, and more time for leadership decisions that only the CEO can make.Boards and investors benefit from better-defined mandates, clearer accountability, and more consistent evaluation for a role where trust and discretion are essential.Chiefs of staff and CSA members benefit from improved clarity on scope, stronger matching through clearer role definition, and a more consistent route from capability building to career progression.Trent Smyth AM, CEO of the CSA, said: “This acquisition turns individual success stories into repeatable practice grounded in evidence.”Keziah Wonstolen, CEO of Vannin Chief of Staff, said: “Being part of CSA lets us support leaders at scale through clearer expectations and stronger assessment.”The Chief of Staff Association operates as a U.S. public benefit corporation headquartered in New York, with offices in London and Melbourne. It runs the Certified Chief of Staff® pathway and executive education programmes with Harvard Business School and Oxford University’s Saïd Business School.The combined platform will also support expansion into emerging areas including family offices and private equity, where demand for strategic executive support is rising.Vannin Chief of Staff is a specialist firm focused on chief of staff role definition, assessment, and recruitment. Its approach is designed to improve fit through clearer principal needs, organisational readiness, and candidate capability.Media enquiries
Nicholas Langford
Director of Communications
The Chief of Staff Association
Nicholas.Langford@csa.org  |  +44 785 253 8690ENDS

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