Chief of Staff / Founder's Office Manager /… at High Impact… · Mumbai

The Role

We are looking for a young, energetic, highly curious generalist who learns quickly, challenges assumptions, and is excited about building in the Indian snacks category.

You will work closely with the founder and take ownership of some of the companys most important questions. The problems will change constantly.

One week, you could be defining a category strategy and conducting a competitive teardown. The next, you could be developing a launch narrative, benchmarking pricing, building an investor deck, or spending time in a dark store understanding how consumers actually shop.

This is a role for someone who enjoys figuring things out from scratch what we should build, who we should build it for, and why they should choose us.

What You Will Own

1. Research That Goes Beyond Google

Do the primary and secondary research required to uncover what others miss.

Speak to distributors, category managers, founders, retailers, consumers and other industry stakeholders. Build relationships, get on calls, use your network, and find insights that aren't available in standard reports.

2. Deep Consumer Understanding

Understand the consumer at a fundamental level.

Who are we serving? What need or occasion does our product address? Why do people buy what they currently buy? What makes them try something new? What makes them purchase again?

3. Category White Space & Positioning

Build a detailed view of the category, competitors, consumer behaviour and food trends.

Then translate that insight into positioning:

• What category do we want to own?
• Who exactly are we building for?
• What space should the brand occupy?
• Why should consumers pick us?
• Why should they come back?

4. Product Roadmap & Go-To-Market

Help determine what we build next, for whom, and in what sequence.

Prioritise products based on opportunity rather than ease of execution. For every SKU, help develop the launch strategy across:

• Channel mix
• Pricing
• Distribution
• Quick commerce and marketplaces
• Distributors and retail partners
• Agencies and creators
• Growth and content
• Sales and communication

The objective is not simply to launch products, but to build a clear path from product consumer distribution repeat purchase.

5. Business & Financial Thinking

Be comfortable speaking the language of the business.

Understand and work with:

• Unit economics
• Price-pack architecture
• Gross margins
• Channel economics
• Pricing benchmarks
• Contribution economics
• Driver-based models
• Sensitivity analysis
• Stress tests

6. Founder’s Office — Whatever Matters That Week

You will be the founder's right hand. The expectation is high ownership, high speed and high quality.

We expect you to be extremely comfortable with AI and actively use it to build better and faster.

You should be able to use AI to:

• Build and iterate driver-based financial models
• Run sensitivities and stress tests
• Scrape and structure category pricing
• Build price-pack architecture maps
• Create dashboards and automated reporting
• Analyse reviews, transcripts and customer conversations
• Identify recurring consumer themes
• Automate repetitive research and operating tasks

You should also understand where AI can be wrong. Use the tools aggressively, but know what needs to be manually verified.

We are looking for someone who has already started working this way — not someone who simply knows how to use ChatGPT.

Who You Are

• 3–10 years of experience in reading a market, understanding consumers and positioning products or businesses to win.
• Experience in a Founder’s Office, or as a standout generalist at a high-growth consumer/FMCG startup, or in VC with meaningful food/consumer exposure.
• Extremely fluent with AI and comfortable building with it.
• Strong financial and commercial understanding, including experience building models that have influenced real business decisions.
• Excellent communicator who can build relationships with founders, investors, manufacturers, agencies, distributors, marketplaces and other partners.
• Comfortable moving between strategic and operational work — from a board deck to a pricing sheet to a store aisle to calendar management.
• Energised by ambiguity and a blank page rather than intimidated by it.
• Hungry to build something from zero and comfortable with the intensity and long hours that can come with an early-stage founding team.

Education

• B.Tech, B.Com, B.Com (Hons), CA, CFA, or equivalent from a strong institution.
• MBA is an advantage.