AETHER
Studio
Most founders hit a wall — not because the idea isn't working, but because the business behind the business starts to take over.
01
Drowning in the Details
Payroll, vendor invoicing, employee onboarding, and business ops paperwork — all landing on your desk.
02
Hiring Feels Impossible
No process. No structure. No time to build one. Good people fall through the cracks while you're busy running everything else.
03
Scaling Without a Foundation
Growth is happening — but the systems underneath aren't ready to hold the weight. And you can feel it.
04
Fundraising Chaos
Investors want proof your house is in order — and they want it yesterday. You don't have time to pull it all together.
Aether Studio
Operational excellence, behind
the scenes
⭐ The Signature Experience
Fractional Chief of Staff
& Head of Operations
Your behind-the-scenes operator. Embedded in your business, handling the complexity so you stay focused on growth. Reserved for a select number of founders at a time.
End-to-End Compliance
HR regulations, government filings, multistate payroll & licensing
People Operations
Hiring, onboarding, employee relations & performance management
Investor Readiness
Data room build coordinating legal, accounting & leadership
Vendor & Finance Ops
Invoicing, accounts payable & contractor management
Process Design
Systems & workflows built to scale with your growth
CEO Advisory
Thought partner, communicator & calm in the storm
À La Carte Packages
People & HR
HR Package
Client Experience
Customer Success Package
Back-Office Operations
Business Operations Support
AETHER
Studio
About
Jocelyn Smith
Founder · Head of Operations · People Partner
Jocelyn Smith has spent over a decade doing the work most people don't see — building the infrastructure, processes, and people systems that let founders and leaders actually scale. She is the person you bring in when the business is growing faster than the foundation can hold, and you need someone who can figure it out, build it right, and make it run.
Her path hasn't been linear — and that's exactly what makes her effective. Jocelyn has pivoted, co-founded, rebuilt, and stepped into roles where there was no playbook and no margin for error. From co-founding a staffing platform and driving it to profitability in under six months, to stepping in as Fractional Head of Operations for a Series A-stage AI SaaS company and building their entire payroll, compliance, and vendor infrastructure from scratch — she has learned to operate with clarity and calm in the middle of chaos.
Across her career, Jocelyn has led HR and people operations, managed multistate compliance and payroll for distributed teams, built investor data rooms in partnership with legal and accounting teams, designed hiring and onboarding systems, and supported CEOs through some of the most complex seasons of their businesses. She brings the same level of ownership to a vendor invoice as she does to a funding round — because she knows that in a growing company, everything is connected.
Aether Studio is the practice she built to do this work intentionally — with a small number of founders at a time, at the level of trust and depth that actually moves the needle.
