Chief of Staff

About the Responsible AIxBio Collaborative

R-ABC is a new nonprofit working to make the world a safer place by reducing the misuse risk of AI-enabled biological tools. We do that by catalyzing and accelerating governance for AI x bio: bringing into being the standards and shared resources that don't exist yet. Our stakeholders are the world-leading frontier companies, platforms, and research groups building AI for the life sciences. We work with them directly, not around them. R-ABC was founded in 2026 and is still small.

Ryan Ritterson founded and leads R-ABC. He spent a decade at Gryphon Scientific running biosecurity and biosafety risk assessments, including work on gain-of-function research and the security side of AI-enabled biotech. He's published widely on biorisk and dual-use governance, and sits on NIST's AI Safety Institute Consortium and NTI's AIxBio Global forum.

About the Role

Responsible AIxBio Collaborative is looking for a Chief of Staff to build the organization's infrastructure while we're still small enough that those decisions are wide open. You'll be the person who figures out what we need and when we need it: benefits, accounting, HR, policies, vendor relationships, the operating rhythm. You’ll also be part of the founding leadership team and be willing to stand your ground, speak hard truths to other leaders, and compromise when necessary.

This is a role for someone who has built something before, start to finish, and wants to do it again. R-ABC is a new nonprofit with a team of one, so you'll be among the first hires, and you'll help decide what kind of place this becomes.

What You’ll Do

Be an early employee at a new nonprofit

• Join early: Help build Responsible AIxBio Collaborative from the ground up while we're still small, new, and moving fast.

• Move like a founder: Take ownership, solve messy problems, fill gaps, and drive progress even when roles, systems, or processes aren't fully defined yet.

• Think alongside the team: Partner with the Executive Director and co-founder to pressure-test priorities, improve how we operate, and turn needs into action.

• Scale execution: Help leadership shift from founder-led execution to a more distributed operating model.

Build the operational foundation

• Sequence the buildout: Figure out what Responsible AIxBio Collaborative needs and in what order.

• Stand things up: Select vendors, run the setup, and own the result. You'll have support from our operations partner, but you're the one making the calls.

• Navigate the transition: Our work is currently operated from an LLC while we found and achieve IRS 501c3 status. You'll help manage that shift on the operational side.

• Keep us compliant: Build the practices a nonprofit needs around governance, documentation, and financial oversight, without more process than an organization our size can carry.

Be the person people talk to

• Earn trust at every level: Be the confidant for staff across the organization.

• Close the gap: Surface what leadership needs to hear, including the things nobody wants to say out loud.

• Protect the culture: Notice when how we work is drifting from what we said we valued, and say so.

Define what we stand for

• Set values deliberately: Work with the Executive Director and co-founder to put Responsible AIxBio Collaborative's values into action.

• Make them real: Turn values into the decisions we actually make about resources, hiring, and how we treat people.

Who You Are

• You've built something: You've come up with a plan to build something, executed on it, and seen it through to the payoff.

• You operate independently: You've shown you can exercise judgment and make progress in ambiguous environments without waiting for detailed direction.

• You push back: You have enough experience and conviction to challenge the Executive Director's thinking and defend your own.

• People trust you: You have a track record of being the person colleagues come to, across seniority levels.

• You're mission-oriented: You care about doing work that matters. You don't need to be a biosecurity expert, but you should want to understand why this work is worth doing.

• You communicate clearly: You have excellent written and verbal communication skills, including with people who don't share your context.

• You thrive early-stage: You're comfortable in a lean, fast-moving nonprofit where priorities may shift, processes need to be built while the work is underway, and no task is too small if it advances the mission.

Nice to Haves

• Nonprofit experience: You've worked in or around 501c3s or other mission-oriented organizations and understand what's different about them.

• Startup operations: You've been early at a startup or small organization and know what breaks first.

• Distributed teams: You've worked somewhere fully remote across multiple time zones and have views on what makes it work.

What Success Looks Like

• Operations runs like a well-oiled machine: Benefits, payroll, accounting, and compliance run smoothly, and the occasional hiccup is addressed without the Executive Director thinking about them.

• We hire well: New people join a place that's ready for them, with clear answers about how things work.

• Leadership is freed: The Executive Director spends time on strategy and stakeholders because operations are reliably owned.

• Values are visible: A year in, someone outside the organization could describe what Responsible AIxBio Collaborative values by watching how we operate.

• We can scale: The foundation you build holds as we grow, and the next operations hire inherits something coherent rather than something to untangle.

Salary and Working Arrangement

Compensation for this role is expected to range from $135,000-$210,000, depending on experience and qualifications.

Responsible AIxBio Collaborative is fully remote with no offices. We provide an allowance for a home office setup or co-working space, whichever you prefer. We're open to candidates outside the US, though we have a slight preference for US-based for this role given the nature of the work. All else equal, we're happy to work across time zones for the right person.

Interview Process:

We know applying takes real effort, so here is what to expect.

• Application review: Our recruiting partner reviews every application.

• Screening conversation (20 minutes): A call with our recruiting partner covering your background, what you're looking for, and what this role involves day to day.

• Conversation with the Executive Director (30 minutes): A discussion with Ryan Ritterson, Responsible AIxBio Collaborative's founder, about the work, the field, and how you think.

• Paid Exercise: A take-home exercise reflecting the kind of work you'd own in this role.

• Final conversations: A conversation with a senior reviewer from Sentinel Bio, our founding funder, to bring an additional perspective into the decision.