Chief of Staff

Right hand to the CEO · Vietnam Operations

Location: Remote Contract: Full-time, with founding-team equity Reports to: the CEO

Our mission

We're building the AI data infrastructure that makes Vietnamese-language models world-class. Every dataset we deliver makes Vietnamese AI stronger.

We believe Vietnamese AI deserves world-class infrastructure — and deserves to be built by Vietnamese people, for Vietnamese people. We want Vietnamese AI to lead, not follow other markets.

Tinh Lọc turns Vietnam's media archives (audio, video, documents, broadcasts — historical and modern) into verified, structured, model-ready datasets. Every dataset we ship expands Vietnamese AI capability across the industry.

We have an anchor customer with a multi-year scope of work, and we launch operations within the next 30 days. This is a chance to join at the founding-team stage, not into a settled company.

Why this role matters

At Tinh Lọc, you are the CEO's operational right hand. You own the company's business operations end-to-end — legal/entity, banking, payroll, accounting, hiring, finance coordination, vendor + customer relationships, and culture — and you coordinate the technical functions so the whole machine runs. Customers pay us for the accuracy, structure, and reliability of the datasets we deliver; your job is to make sure the business behind that delivery actually works.

As we scale from a small founding team today to 10-15 people in Year 1, you are the person who makes the company run day-to-day. There's no ops team in place — you build it. There are no default processes — you design them. There's no workforce culture — you create it. Your operational decisions directly shape Tinh Lọc's unit economics, quality, and scale.

You are a peer to the CEO on the operational axis — a founding-team builder, not an executive assistant. In 24-36 months, if execution meets expectations, you grow into a proper COO / Managing Director as the company expands into Years 2-3 with 25-50 people.

What this role is — and isn't

• It IS: the operational backbone of Tinh Lọc — business operations (legal, banking, payroll, accounting, finance, hiring, vendors, customers, culture) plus cross-functional coordination across every team. You are the CEO's right hand.
• It ISN'T: this role does not build pipelines, run the AI, or do annotation. The AI extraction pipeline is owned by the Pipeline / AI Engineer and the Data Operations Lead; annotation is owned by the Annotation Programme Manager. You coordinate and unblock these functions with technical literacy — you don't execute their work.

Who we're looking for

You are someone who:

• Has 3-4 years of operations, chief-of-staff, or founder's-office experience at a Vietnamese tech company (startup, scale-up, or unicorn — e.g., VinAI, VNG, FPT.AI, Zalo, MoMo, Tiki, Lazada Vietnam, Grab Vietnam, Antler / 500 portfolio companies, etc.). You don't need to have held a "Chief of Staff" title before — we care about the quality of your operational ownership, not the label.

• Has reasonable technical literacy. You don't need to be a developer, but you need to understand how AI / data pipelines / cloud infrastructure / annotation workflows operate at concept level. You need to be able to talk intelligently with the Pipeline / AI Engineer and the Annotation Programme Manager about scope, dependencies, and trade-offs — not through technical certifications, but through curiosity and fast learning.

• Has genuine passion for Vietnamese AI specifically. This isn't a role for someone looking for "an AI company to make my CV look good." We need someone who believes in the mission — someone who believes Vietnamese AI must be excellent, and is willing to invest the next 3-5 years of their career to help make that happen. You'll be asked about this specifically in the interview.

• Can build a team's operating rhythm and culture from zero. You understand Vietnamese working culture — recruiting from ITviec / LinkedIn / the Vietnamese AI community, planning around Tết and the holidays, and building process and culture where none exists. Day-to-day management of the annotation workforce sits with the Annotation Programme Manager and Data Operations Lead — you build the company-wide rhythm everyone runs on and step in wherever coordination breaks down.

• Can work with a founder at early stage. You're comfortable carrying many responsibilities at once with no existing systems — you build the systems. You're comfortable with priorities shifting weekly as strategy evolves.

• Native Vietnamese; working-fluent English. You'll work with the CEO (English-native) daily AND with the entire Vietnamese workforce daily. Both languages need to be natural.

Who we're NOT looking for

To save your time and ours, here are profiles that won't fit:

• Senior / Director with 10+ years of experience. We need someone younger, hungrier, and ready to grow into the COO role alongside the company. Senior over-qualified candidates will do better at another company.
• Operations or admin generalists from non-tech industries. Banking, retail, manufacturing, or FMCG ops backgrounds aren't the right fit — we need someone who has lived inside a tech environment and can hold a real conversation about AI and data pipelines.
• Career "Chief of Staff" candidates who are really executive assistants. If your experience is calendars, travel, inbox, and meeting notes, this isn't it. This role owns real operational scope — legal, finance, hiring, vendors, delivery — not executive admin.
• People focused only on high salary. The compensation here is competitive for mid-level Vietnamese tech ops, but the real value is in the founding-level equity plus the growth path to COO/MD over the next 24-36 months. If you compare purely on cash, FDI companies will pay more — and that's the right choice for you.
• People who don't understand or care about AI. We'll spot this in the first interview round through specific questions about Vietnamese AI and data pipelines. Don't waste time.
• People who want a "stable corporate ops" role. This is a founding-team role with scope that evolves weekly. If you need a stable job description and clear ready-made processes, this isn't the role for you.

What you'll do

First 2 weeks

• Read all strategic + technical documentation (business plan, data flywheel doctrine, extraction + annotation exec plans, 30-day sprint); 1-on-1s with the CEO + Vietnamese co-founders
• Take over operations from the CEO: banking, payroll setup, accounting software, vendor relationships, OpCo legal registration

By Day 30 — get the company operational

• OpCo registered, banking live, first payroll cycle run
• Lock the pilot scope with the anchor customer alongside the CEO
• Get the first hires moving — onboarding the Pipeline / AI Engineer and Data Operations Lead, and the Annotation Programme Manager search underway

Day 30-90 — team, rhythm, first delivery

• Onboard the Annotation Programme Manager, and support the Data Operations Lead in hiring the annotation layers
• Build the monthly close + reporting process and stand up the company's operating rhythm
• Support delivery of the first full pilot batch to the customer (~Day 60)

6-12 months

• Scale the team to 10-15 people; build the working culture (quality + AI-leverage + Vietnamese-first)
• Manage cash flow, payroll, vendor + customer relationships; coordinate with finance on projections, pricing, and the customer billing cycle
• Develop the Vietnamese vendor + advisor network

24-36 months

• If execution meets expectations: grow into a proper COO / Managing Director
• Participate in strategic decisions at company level
• Potentially lead expansion into customers #2 and #3

Compensation

How to apply

Send via email to contact@coreywilton.org (or through the advisor who introduced you to this role):

1. CV — concise, focused on operations / chief-of-staff experience
2. A short note (200-400 words, Vietnamese or English) answering these 3 questions:
   • Why are you specifically interested in Vietnamese AI (not AI in general)? Be specific, not generic.
   • What ops system did you build or operate over the last 3-4 years that you're most proud of? (1-2 sentences, focused.)
   • What do you think the biggest challenge in the Chief of Staff role at Tinh Lọc will be, based on what you've just read?

We'll respond within 5 business days to all qualified candidates. Round-1 interview with the CEO (60 min, video). Round-2 with the CEO + a co-founder (90 min, in-person if possible, video if not). Offer extended within 7 days of Round-2 if there's a fit.