Every leader creates a wake. Most never turn around to see what’s capsizing behind them.
The CEO who can’t figure out why their Chief of Staff isn’t delivering.
The founder who introduced the role wrong and tanked its authority in the first week.
The executive team that’s quietly working around the person who’s supposed to be coordinating them.
The Chief of Staff who’s drowning in logistics nobody hired them for while the strategic work sits untouched.
These aren’t people problems. They’re architecture problems. And they’re invisible until someone shows you the blueprint.
That’s what The Coul & Gold Briefing does.
Who We Are
Suzi Coul served as Chief of Staff to a Deputy Prime Minister and Lord Chancellor, held elected Cabinet office in the UK with responsibility for public finances, co-founded and operated a commercial business for 14 years, and chaired a national charity through a merger her predecessors had deferred for a decade. She builds the diagnostic frameworks—including a nine-dimensional model for mapping a leader's operating signature, the trust architecture, and the structural systems that turn chaotic leadership into something coherent. She doesn't read rooms. She reads the operating system underneath them —the decision rhythms, communication patterns, and structural conditions that create coherence or quietly undermine it. When she maps the environment you're walking into, she sees things you didn't know were shaping your experience.
Rachael Goldfarb started her career supporting the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States in the Clinton White House. She went on to help build the CFPB from employee #19 to a fully staffed federal agency, served as Chief of Staff to the President of Global Health at the Gates Foundation, and worked for Raj Shah — now President of the Rockefeller Foundation — at USDA. She’s interviewed over 150 Chiefs of Staff to understand what actually makes this role work. Today, she’s a Partner at Prime Executive Office, where she advises CEOs and Chiefs of Staff on role design, authority structure, and the operating architecture that makes or breaks a first year. She speaks on the Chief of Staff role — its definition, its relationship to AI, and why it represents the fastest path to diversifying the C-suite — at conferences, on podcasts, and to leadership teams who are ready to stop getting it wrong. She writes from inside the role — not about it, and not adjacent to it, but from having done it at the highest levels. When she tells you your job description is broken, she’s not theorizing. She’s seen the wreckage.
One voice from inside the role. One from the blueprints. Same mission:
to make the Chief of Staff role—and the leaders who depend on it—actually work.
What You'll Get
A new issue every week. Rachael and Suzi alternate—one voice per issue, a different perspective every time.
Every other issue is free. The rest are behind the paywall, where the real frameworks live.
Free subscribers get the sharp end—provocative takes on what’s broken in how organizations design, hire for, and accidentally sabotage the Chief of Staff role.
These are the posts CEOs forward to their boards and Chiefs of Staff screenshot in private group chats. If your CEO needs to read it, forward it. If you are the CEO—subscribe and get the tool behind the take.
Paid subscribers get the operating system:
Signal guides and decision frameworks with every paid edition—leadership pattern assessments, role architecture templates, operating rhythm blueprints
A monthly diagnostic drop—one new operational tool per month, built for Chiefs of Staff and the executives who work with them
Ask Us Anything threads—bring real scenarios, get direct input from both of us
Quarterly virtual roundtables with CEOs and Chiefs of Staff—real conversations, not webinars
Priority access to advisory services and assessment sessions as they launch
Early access to The List—our curated pipeline of vetted, endorsed Chief of Staff candidates following our Chief of Staff readiness assessment
Who This Is For
CEOs: You hired a Chief of Staff six months ago and can’t figure out why it’s not working. It’s probably not them. The role was broken before they walked in the door. This newsletter will show you why and how to fix it.
Executives: You’ve been told a Chief of Staff is joining the leadership team and you’re quietly wondering whether they outrank you, report to you, or are about to reorganize your department. Fair question. We’ll answer it.
Founders: You just introduced your new Chief of Staff as your “right hand” and watched your C-suite hear “assistant.” That introduction probably cost you more than you realize. We’ll tell you exactly how to fix it.
Chiefs of Staff: You’re overwhelmed, under-resourced, or fighting for authority that should have been baked into the role from day one. You already know you need this.
Founding Member Offer
The first 100 paid subscribers lock in Founding Member pricing at $99/year for life. Every framework, every tool, every roundtable, every edition—for less than the cost of one bad hire’s first week of wasted salary. After the first 100, the annual rate moves to $149. Monthly subscriptions are $15.
Why This Newsletter Exists
There are 35 million businesses in the United States and nearly 6 million in the UK. Most of them have never had a Chief of Staff. Many of them need one. And almost none of them know how to design, hire for, or support the role correctly. The ones that do hire often discover the problem wasn't the person. It was the leadership environment the person was handed.
The Coul & Gold Briefing exists to change both sides of that equation: the structural intelligence executives need to build environments where leadership actually works, and the pattern literacy Chiefs of Staff need to navigate the ones they inherit.
Subscribe free and get the sharp takes. Go paid and get the tools to actually change how you operate.
Either way, you're in the right room.
