Placing a Chief of Staff at Swarmbotics AI
A three-week search for the operational partner Swarmbotics AI's CEO needed to create more leadership capacity.
Placing a Chief of Staff at Swarmbotics AI
A three-week search for the operational partner Swarmbotics AI's CEO needed to create more leadership capacity.
Swarmbotics AI is an Arizona-based defence robotics start-up founded in 2023. It builds FireAnt, a lightweight, modular unmanned ground vehicle that operates in swarms under a single operator, with interchangeable payloads for reconnaissance, data relay and anti-armour roles.
The design principle is attritable robotics: affordable platforms deployed in numbers, in place of a single high-cost system.
The company was co-founded by Stephen Houghton, a former Marine Corps officer with leadership experience at Cruise and AWS, and Drew Watson, who led robotics software programmes at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It has raised $17 million to date.
In February 2026, the US Army selected Swarmbotics to develop swarming, attritable small unmanned ground vehicles as part of its Transformation in Contact effort with the 1st Cavalry Division, after evaluations at xTech Overwatch.
An Overloaded CEO and a Rare Profile
Swarmbotics first came to us to fill a Business Operations Manager role. The problem underneath the brief was more specific. Stephen was carrying too much of the company's analytical and operational workload himself. That was happening at a stage when the external side of the business was likely to need more of his time, not less.
He needed someone who could take that workload and own it. That pointed to a Chief of Staff: a trusted operational partner to the CEO with a broader remit than a functional operations hire.
The profile narrowed fast:
- Military exposure, to understand the operational culture of the defence customer.
- Top-tier consulting experience. That meant structured analytical thinking, plus the pace to apply it inside a start-up.
- Willingness to relocate to Phoenix, Arizona, which cut an already small pool considerably.
Each attribute is common enough on its own. Finding all three in one profile narrowed the market considerably.
Then there was the calendar. The search opened on 10 December and ran straight into Christmas, when candidate availability drops and most processes stall. For an early-stage defence company, a senior hire has an outsized effect on execution speed. A slow or wrong appointment would likely have left the bottleneck with the CEO for another quarter.
Understand the Requirement
We start with the situation, not the solution. David and Sam took the briefing directly with Stephen. They covered the functional requirements first, then the parts a job description misses:
- How he works
- Which parts of the workload he wanted to hand over first
- What kind of partnership the role needed to support
That conversation redefined the role from Business Operations Manager to Chief of Staff. The seniority, the target profile and the search strategy all followed from that definition.
Define the Route: A Search Built Around the Intersection
We targeted the overlap of three attributes: military service, a top-tier consulting background, and openness to a move to Arizona. The market map was built for that overlap and nothing broader.
Because the mapping came straight out of the briefing, the shortlist went out the same day the role was briefed. It included the candidate Swarmbotics hired.
Deliver With Discipline Through the Holidays
First CVs went out on day one. The final interview took place just before Christmas, and the offer was accepted in the first week of January. Holding that pace meant managing candidate availability around the break. It also meant keeping both sides engaged through the weeks when hiring usually goes quiet. The process stayed on track throughout the holiday period.
Outcome: 1 of 1 role filled, repeat mandates since
Operational & Commercial Impact
With a Chief of Staff in post, Stephen handed over the analytical and operational workload that had been absorbing his time. He moved that time into partnerships, investor engagement and long-term product direction.
The timing was good. The offer was accepted a month before the US Army announced its selection of Swarmbotics for work with the 1st Cavalry Division. That is the kind of stage where CEO attention is the company's scarcest resource. Solving the bandwidth problem early removed a bottleneck that would otherwise have limited how fast Swarmbotics could act on the opportunities in front of it.
What came next is the clearest evidence of the outcome. Since this placement, Akkar has placed candidates for Swarmbotics in Hardware Engineering and Manufacturing. A single leadership hire has become an ongoing partnership across technical and operational teams.
"Finding candidates with the specific technical experience we needed is always challenging. Akkar took the time to understand the role and provided a focused shortlist that aligned well with our requirements. Communication was clear, the process was efficient, and we were able to make a strong hire. A reliable partner for hard-to-fill roles."
Swarmbotics AI is an Arizona-based defence robotics start-up founded in 2023. It builds FireAnt, a lightweight, modular unmanned ground vehicle that operates in swarms under a single operator, with interchangeable payloads for reconnaissance, data relay and anti-armour roles.
The design principle is attritable robotics: affordable platforms deployed in numbers, in place of a single high-cost system.
The company was co-founded by Stephen Houghton, a former Marine Corps officer with leadership experience at Cruise and AWS, and Drew Watson, who led robotics software programmes at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It has raised $17 million to date.
In February 2026, the US Army selected Swarmbotics to develop swarming, attritable small unmanned ground vehicles as part of its Transformation in Contact effort with the 1st Cavalry Division, after evaluations at xTech Overwatch.
An Overloaded CEO and a Rare Profile
Swarmbotics first came to us to fill a Business Operations Manager role. The problem underneath the brief was more specific. Stephen was carrying too much of the company's analytical and operational workload himself. That was happening at a stage when the external side of the business was likely to need more of his time, not less.
He needed someone who could take that workload and own it. That pointed to a Chief of Staff: a trusted operational partner to the CEO with a broader remit than a functional operations hire.
The profile narrowed fast:
- Military exposure, to understand the operational culture of the defence customer.
- Top-tier consulting experience. That meant structured analytical thinking, plus the pace to apply it inside a start-up.
- Willingness to relocate to Phoenix, Arizona, which cut an already small pool considerably.
Each attribute is common enough on its own. Finding all three in one profile narrowed the market considerably.
Then there was the calendar. The search opened on 10 December and ran straight into Christmas, when candidate availability drops and most processes stall. For an early-stage defence company, a senior hire has an outsized effect on execution speed. A slow or wrong appointment would likely have left the bottleneck with the CEO for another quarter.
Understand the Requirement
We start with the situation, not the solution. David and Sam took the briefing directly with Stephen. They covered the functional requirements first, then the parts a job description misses:
- How he works
- Which parts of the workload he wanted to hand over first
- What kind of partnership the role needed to support
That conversation redefined the role from Business Operations Manager to Chief of Staff. The seniority, the target profile and the search strategy all followed from that definition.
Define the Route: A Search Built Around the Intersection
We targeted the overlap of three attributes: military service, a top-tier consulting background, and openness to a move to Arizona. The market map was built for that overlap and nothing broader.
Because the mapping came straight out of the briefing, the shortlist went out the same day the role was briefed. It included the candidate Swarmbotics hired.
Deliver With Discipline Through the Holidays
First CVs went out on day one. The final interview took place just before Christmas, and the offer was accepted in the first week of January. Holding that pace meant managing candidate availability around the break. It also meant keeping both sides engaged through the weeks when hiring usually goes quiet. The process stayed on track throughout the holiday period.
Successful candidate identified
3 weeks
Accepted
Delivered on schedule
Operational & Commercial Impact
With a Chief of Staff in post, Stephen handed over the analytical and operational workload that had been absorbing his time. He moved that time into partnerships, investor engagement and long-term product direction.
The timing was good. The offer was accepted a month before the US Army announced its selection of Swarmbotics for work with the 1st Cavalry Division. That is the kind of stage where CEO attention is the company's scarcest resource. Solving the bandwidth problem early removed a bottleneck that would otherwise have limited how fast Swarmbotics could act on the opportunities in front of it.
What came next is the clearest evidence of the outcome. Since this placement, Akkar has placed candidates for Swarmbotics in Hardware Engineering and Manufacturing. A single leadership hire has become an ongoing partnership across technical and operational teams.
The right hire is often different from the one first briefed.
Swarmbotics asked for a Business Operations Manager. The business needed a Chief of Staff. Questioning the brief with the CEO before mapping a single profile got the definition right. The right definition is what made a same-day shortlist possible.
In defence tech, the hardest hires sit where unusual attributes overlap.
Military service, top-tier consulting and a willingness to move to Arizona rarely appear on the same CV. A search built around that exact overlap finds them. A broad sweep of the market mostly finds people with one or two of the three.
A precise first hire opens the door to a partnership.
Delivering on a senior search built the trust behind repeat mandates in Hardware Engineering and Manufacturing. With early-stage clients, the first placement usually decides whether there is a second.
"Finding candidates with the specific technical experience we needed is always challenging. Akkar took the time to understand the role and provided a focused shortlist that aligned well with our requirements. Communication was clear, the process was efficient, and we were able to make a strong hire. A reliable partner for hard-to-fill roles."
See the full results, step by step
Drop your email and get instant access to the complete case study.
Interested in working with us?
Reach out to us, and our team will connect with you within 24 hours.
