Culturele en creatieve vacatures Tilburg

We are seeking an exceptional Chief of Staff to act as the CEO’s closest partner. You are the internal owner of investor readiness, equity story, and Series C execution. You are the leader of strategic initiatives. You will lead the development and execution of our growth strategy, and work closely with finance and marketing. You don’t just coordinate projects, but drive them end-to-end. You will define the total equity narrative, assess whether RIFT meets institutional infrastructure quality standards, and actively close gaps across leadership, business model, governance, and commercial execution. You act as a strategic partner to internal and external stakeholders, including our institutional shareholder base.

RIFT develops and deploys Iron Fuel Technology to decarbonise industrial heat. After years of technology development and pilots, the company has secured substantial capital and is now moving into commercial deployment. We have secured €114 million in financing. The first large-scale project is progressing toward Final Investment Decision, while preparation for the next equity phase is already underway.

The Chief of Staff provides strategic leadership as the company transitions from a scale-up to an industrial-scale organization, helping shape a more mature organisational structure and helping prepare the business for key milestones, including the upcoming Final Investment Decision (FID).

The core emphasis of the position is on ensuring full institutional readiness and strategic commercial leadership. This includes aligning strategic priorities, strengthening governance frameworks, enhancing financial reporting and transparency, and refining the overall investor narrative. The objective is to ensure that all structural, operational, and capital-related prerequisites are firmly in place before entering the market.

The Chief of Staff will assume responsibility for investor positioning and capital strategy within a capital-intensive, multi-entity organization that is fundamentally strong and well-supported, yet not fully institutionalized. A critical aspect of the mandate is to create clarity, discipline, and alignment across entities and stakeholders to meet the standards expected by institutional investors.

The role carries substantial autonomy and accountability, with a clear strategic commercial and consulting focus and focus on establishing the capital foundations necessary to support long-term industrial scale-up and sustainable growth.

Serie C strategy & execution

• Own the end-to-end preparation and execution of the €150M Series C round
• Define fundraising milestones, readiness criteria, and internal timeline
• Coordinate all advisors (legal, financial, IR, banks) and internal and external stakeholders, RVC and Investment meetings
• Lead data room preparation, diligence processes, and investor Q&A

Investor story & equity narrative

• Define and continuously refine RIFT’s total equity story
• Ensure a single, coherent narrative across pitch decks, models, board materials, and external communication

Commercial and strategic leadership and business partnering

• Strategic commercial traction
• Business model robustness
• Leadership
• Stakeholder management with legal, financial, IR, banks, investors

Ensure RIFT meets expectations on:

• Governance and decision-making maturity
• Risk management and downside protection
• Cash-flow predictability and asset quality
• Long-term platform and portfolio logic
• Translate investor expectations into concrete internal requirements

You manage and substantiate the investment thesis behind equity returns across different scenarios, entry valuation, value drivers, exit options and attractiveness of long-term ownership. In addition, you assess whether the business model’s repeatability and capital efficiency support value creation and rigorously test assumptions from an institutional investor’s perspective. This role combines operational excellence with high-level strategic thinking and a consulting mindset.

Rift’s Chief Strategy Officer

You have at least 6 years working experience, preferably evaluating large-scale energy or infrastructure, energy or project finance. Relevant experience in strategy consulting, investment banking, M&A, or infrastructure investing, who bring a strong strategic perspective on growth, capital allocation, and long-term value creation.

You can operate at infrastructure-investor quality level and execute inside a scale-up. Strong at structuring, diligence, and investor communication and strong financial and strategic intuition.

Stakeholder management, you work hands-on with recruitment, strategy, commercial, finance, and operations teams to close these gaps and to ensure successful Series C.

Highly proactive and organized; you thrive when managing several overlapping timelines and know how to focus on what actually moves the needle.

A steep learning curve feels daunting: We move fast and use cutting-edge technology; you need to be an aggressive self-learner who can master new domains in days, not months.

Working at RIFT means being part of a dynamic, diverse, and driven team. At Rift, you have the opportunity to shape the future and immerse yourself in challenging projects. You get:

• Competitive compensation - we want to attract and retain the best so we are offering a compensation package that aligns with that. The compensation package may include a long-term incentive plan or equity participation, ensuring strong alignment with the company’s long-term success.
• A great new office in the center of Eindhoven with more than 70 Rift colleagues/impact
• Grow in a growing company - there’s no better place to develop your talents and learn new skills. You make the impact for the future!
• Experienced entrepreneurs - work with experienced and dedicated entrepreneurs as part of an growing international team
• Energetic environment in a high performance and high intensity culture with passion, team spirit and happiness at work. We scale rapidly and you can pick your own initiatives with high ownership and responsibility.

So this unique role combines investor-level thinking, hands-on execution, and company-wide orchestration. This is not a comfort zone role. It’s for those who want to take ownership, push boundaries, and create measurable impact where it truly matters. So let’s make the difference and make the impossible, possible.

Ervaringsniveau: Senior