I am excited to share this interview with Xander Zonneveld, the Chief of Staff at Leapsome. They are an AI-powered people platform for HR excellence.
Xander and I met in 2024 and have become friends since.
His energy is infectious. I am glad that you get to experience his energy in the video above!
Below are some of the core ideas from our conversation.
How Xander became CoS: Early on in his career, Xander had an initial love for sales and connecting with people. After working at Phillips, he joined Leapsome as an Account Executive to be on the front line talking to customers. From there, he pitched himself to be a Chief of Staff at Leapsome. He got this CoS role as the Chief of Staff to VP Global Sales. Since then, his role has grown and evolved and his title is now “Chief of Staff - North America Growth.”
What his CoS role looks like now: His role is a hybrid CoS role, combining Chief of Staff duties, sales team leadership, and go-to-market execution.
Go-To-Market in NYC: When Leapsome asked him to relocate to New York in 2024 from Berlin, his main task was to “unlock the growth” of the NYC office and lead larger go-to-market projects. In the above video, Xander shared some GTM experiments around events and conferences, and the importance of relationship building as a way to stand-out in a noisy business world.
Important skills when working in Go-To-Market: Project management and relationship building, internally and externally.
Being an Operational Translator as a Chief of Staff: The core responsibility is translating strategic initiatives into tactical actions and operational adoption. Xander describes constantly moving between “helicopter view” and frontline execution, while owning the operating model of a sales team.
Creating Communication Discipline: He implemented a new weekly sales operating model where managers meet Monday and communication pushes are on Tuesday only, with no updates Wednesday-Friday.
Bringing Customer Needs into the Organization: He mentioned that being close to the frontline helps him better understand and hopefully support customers. Xander said go-to-market is valuable because “you can bring those needs into the whole org. Because that’s in the end why a business is profitable or successful, for example, because you’re solving a need.”
Advice for CoS: Be Proactive and Bold. Chiefs of Staff should be assertive in spotting gaps and bringing people together. He said that “you are the spider in the web” who should proactively identify and solve problems that won’t get solved otherwise.
…..
Alright, that’s a wrap!
Thank you so much Xander! Check out Leapsome!
Reply back with any questions or ideas.
Until next time,
David Nebinski who hopes you enjoyed watching the video at the top
PS: my next CoS Mixer is on Thursday February 26th. Join us here!
