In this spotlight episode of the Executive Office Insights podcast, join Diana Brandl for an inspiring conversation with Matthew Chapman (President of Sales and Marketing) and his Executive Business Partner, Agnes Spohn, from Freudenberg Group. Despite being based in the US and Germany, this power duo reveals the dynamics of their thriving, trust-based, remote partnership, including how they leverage time zones for efficiency and rely on open communication.

Learn about the evolving role of the assistant into a strategic business partner. Agnes, who Matthew calls a “networking superhero,” shares her passion project: founding and expanding Freudenberg’s internal assistant community to increase visibility and professional development. Discover the essential tools – from Microsoft Teams and Microsoft To Do to Year Compass – that keep this cross-continental collaboration running smoothly.

CONNECT WITH AGNES AND MATTHEW

• Matthew on LinkedIn
• Agnes on LinkedIn

ABOUT AGNES and MATTHEW

Matthew Chapman: President of Sales & Marketing, Automotive Sales

Matthew is a dynamic and trusted global sales and marketing executive with extensive experience in strategic planning, sales process development, global intercultural leadership, and sales execution. Confident, self-motivated, bi-lingual leader who is able to recognize cultural differences and resolve problems across cultures. Matthew is proficient at managing multiple complex projects and focused on building strong customer relationships to profitably grow both the top and bottom lines.

Agnes Spohn: EA to Matthew Chapman and Founder of FST Assistant Community

Agnes was born in Berlin where she also lived until 2013. Her background is hotel management and during that time she learned being a multitasking person and enjoyed working with different nationalities & humans. After many years in the hotel operations day to day business, she moved on to a Sales position in charge of the DACH region corporates and the entertainment industry.

By planning her sales calls, she discovered the world of being a frequent traveler which helps her today planning business trips for her manager. Her network to the hotel industry is still huge and that helps a lot by planning meetings and negotiating contracts. Agnes moved to the South of Germany in 2013 working in Frankfurt in the financial industry. During that time, she was mainly in charge of planning investor meetings and roadshows as well as huge investor conferences in Frankfurt and Paris. After her parental leave she started with Freudenberg in 2018. Today, she combines a lot of her skills learned in the past to the daily business of being an Executive Assistant.

Agnes loves working with an international global based team and so it is no surprise that her manager is located in the US but she is located close to Heidelberg.

ABOUT EXECUTIVE OFFICE INSIGHTS with DIANA BRANDL

Executive Office Insights is a podcast for executive support professionals hosted by Diana Brandl – an accomplished trainer, consultant, coach, and former C-suite senior executive assistant with nearly two decades of experience at renowned international companies, this podcast dives deep into the evolving world of executive excellence.

Diana explores the critical themes shaping the modern workplace, including leadership dynamics, digital transformation, AI, and the future of work. Featuring insightful conversations with a diverse range of German and English-speaking experts, each episode equips listeners with actionable insights and strategies to thrive in the ever-changing executive office landscape.

–––

THE LEADER ASSISTANT ACADEMY

Enroll in the on-demand, AI-powered professional development resource for Leader Assistants who want to level up. Learn more -> The Leader Assistant Academy.

THE LEADER ASSISTANT BOOK

Download the first 3 chapters of The Leader Assistant: Four Pillars of Game-Changing Assistant for FREE here or buy it on Amazon and listen to the audiobook on Audible. Also, check out the companion study guide, The Leader Assistant Workbook, to dig deeper.

JOIN THE FREE COMMUNITY

Join the Leader Assistant Global Community for bonus content, job opportunities, and to network with other assistants who are committed to becoming leaders!

THE LEADER ASSISTANT PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP

To learn more about how you can join growth-minded Leader Assistants, check out our Leader Assistant Premium Membership for ongoing training, coaching, and community.

LEADER ASSISTANT LIVE EVENTS

Check out our constantly updated schedule of events for admins and assistants at LeaderAssistantLive.com.

SUBSCRIBE

Subscribe to The Leader Assistant Podcast so you don’t miss new episodes!

You can find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pandora, and Stitcher.

Join my email list here if you want to get an email when a new episode goes live.

LEAVE A REVIEW

If you’re enjoying the podcast, please take 2 minutes to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Each review helps me stay motivated to keep the show going!

–––

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00
Hey friends, thanks for tuning in to the Leader Assistant Podcast. I’m excited to share another spotlight episode of my friend Diana Brandl’s show, Executive Office Insights. Be sure to check out the show notes for more information about her show and today’s featured guest. But in the meantime, enjoy this conversation and keep leading well.

00:00:29
The Leader Assistant podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, game-changing leader assistants.

00:00:42
Check out the show notes to this episode on leaderassistant.com/374. Well, as you all know, I’m always looking out for these very powerful partnerships when it comes to the work of an assistant together with her executive.

00:00:58
And in this case, I was lucky enough to have a wonderful chat with Agnes and Matthew, both working for Freudenberg Sealing Technologies. Matthew is the president of sales and marketing for the automotive area, and Agnes is his EA.

00:01:17
She’s based in Germany, he’s based in the US, and how they work together, how important it is to have a partnership of trust, but also having an understanding of new work and finding always good ways of innovative working and growing together. This has been the majority of the talk that we had, and it was very interesting.

00:01:41
fascinating to see them work together in such a wonderful way because as they don’t see each other every single day it is still working just fine and I know you’re going to love this episode because especially these episodes are always very high in demand because we love to hear the best practices from executives and their assistants. So welcome Matthew and Agnes.

00:02:08
I specifically love when I have two guests in actually part of my episode here. And that’s the case here tonight, especially since there’s a power duo waiting for me here. We have Agnes and Matt over. Good to have you here with us. Hi. Hi, Dana. Thank you for having us. Hi. Great to be here. It’s a pleasure of hosting you. Where are you actually currently joining us from? Why don’t we start with you, Agnes?

00:02:35
I am dialing in from the area of Weinheim near Mannheim. That’s close to Heidelberg as well. That’s probably the area you might know better. Yeah. So I’m located in Weinheim. Nice area. What about you, Matt? Different time zone, right? Different time zone. Yeah. I’m calling in from the US. I currently live in Michigan and I’m at our headquarters just outside of Metro Detroit. Perfect. It’s been ages since I’ve been to Detroit. I remember years ago, I was a frequent flyer on Northwest Airlines. They were actually stationed there, right, in Detroit. And so I’ve always been on NWA for quite a while. But they’re, I think, now part of Delta, right? That’s right. We still have a hub right in Detroit. So it actually makes it very, very nice to be able to travel out of Detroit. We have direct flights, or at least we had direct flights pretty much anywhere we wanted to go. And, you know, with the pandemic, it’s a bit tougher nowadays. It is true indeed. So, Agnes, why don’t you describe your executive Matt to us?

00:03:33
It would be interesting to find out how you describe him.

00:03:38
So I think I start like with the basics, things like, yeah, I mean, Matt is married.

00:03:44
He’s a father of three. He is an American born in the US. He lives in the US as well, although he already lives two times in Germany, both times three years in a row. So I think like after that experience, I would say he’s kind of a bit of German as well in his mind.

00:04:07
We’ve got to find this out in a minute.

00:04:10
Exactly.

00:04:11
So besides that, I mean, as a fun fact, probably he loves doing PowerPoint slides, right? This is like his passion, but… um i mean he is um he’s a full engineer and technology guy so this is why he’s there in the position he is today so but if it would not be the position he’s holding at the moment i think he would run like a powerpoint company or so running slides every day right so things like that so yeah so besides that um

00:04:43
I mean, Matt is a person he fully trusts on you and your work. And this is what makes it really nice to work with him. And he’s also, he challenged us a lot as well. But, you know, he’s always asking the right questions straight to the point, I must say. He’s a good listener.

00:05:06
He appreciates a lot what we are doing and the team is doing. That’s also, and he got the attention to detail. So things like, I mean, that Matt, you sent me flowers for the administrative professionals day. These are things I really, I mean, I really appreciate a lot. So, yeah. And then like coming to more the private area, I would say we became really close, good friends after a couple of years working together. We share the same humor. We also share the passion about food and wine. So, yeah. Lots of great information already coming from you, Agnes. And I, wow, it’s incredible to hear how you describe your executive from a professional and a private perspective. So I have a lot of questions already. I hear PowerPoint here, Matt.

00:06:00
Absolutely. A lot of people actually moving over to Sway. Have you tried it out? Microsoft Sway? Yeah. I have tried Sway.

00:06:07
We work in a very technical business. And while the time that I use Sway, I see for the graphics and the way that it presents information is really nice. But still within our company, PowerPoint is absolutely the base tool that we have. And yeah, I’ve gotten to a point where I really know how to use it. I really enjoy using it. And Yeah, I love it too. That’s the key point. Absolutely. I love it too. But I keep hearing people that are actually ready to move over to Sway or Prezi or try to find out a few new options how to present their content. Another question before you’re going to introduce Agnes to us.

00:06:45
German, German culture. We’ve heard about food lover. Would you say that the German cuisine is something that attracted you or would you say, oh, no, I’d rather go for the Italian side? I mean, it certainly depends.

00:06:58
We were actually I was just in Germany and we had carava in Weinheim and the meat sandwich or a brat with a bun. I mean, this is this is really outstanding.

00:07:09
Certainly, I think we understand that, you know, German cuisine is maybe not the top cuisine in the world, whether French or Italian. It’s certainly something that they really have in those countries. But I think it is a really fascinating. It’s a very comfortable place to go and eat and find food. And certainly, I mean, with the beer and more and more of the wine, it is more and more becoming a food place. Absolutely. And since actually we just opened up Oktoberfest in Munich, I don’t know if you’ve heard it.

00:07:37
Since two years, finally, they opened the gate and everyone is just so happy to be out there again and for sure enjoying food and drinking a good beer and everything. So, yeah, Munich is crazy at the moment, I would say. I can imagine.

00:07:52
So what would you say about Agnes, Matt? How would you describe her?

00:07:57
Yeah, it was great to hear how Agnes described me. And I think maybe I went in a little bit of a different direction as I kind of wrote down what I kind of thought with Agnes. And I wrote down the number one thing is she’s a networking superhero. I know I hear it on your podcast and I agree.

00:08:16
I use the same thing in my own description of people, you know, this superpower, what is her superpower? And it really is not working. And she connects with people like really just by default. And I think maybe you even have that same experience having, having met her personally. Right. And ultimately, what I see is that it really comes from this place of really, truly caring about people.

00:08:39
And I think even just in the way that she described me, she’s able to pick out those different bits and pieces. And maybe that’s where I, as an engineer, am not so good at those things. Yeah.

00:08:52
One of the other things that I wrote down, and I think it’s funny because it’s maybe the two different sides of this coin is we always talk about she loves the status quo. And I wrote down, oh, gosh, oh, gosh, oh, gosh. And she says this all the time. Yeah. But she’s amazing at accepting and adapting to change. She really is. And she’s really open to try new things. It’s maybe the anticipation of the new things that she doesn’t love so much. But once you really get into it, she’s really leading and driving so many of the things. And I think we’ll talk about the future assistant or the network that she’s created where this has really changed within our organization and she’s driving it. Indeed.

00:09:31
And it needs courage also, Agnes, to do these projects. And as Matt said, we’re going to hear more about this later on because, of course, we’re curious to find out where you’re currently standing with the network, right? And maybe two more points. One is she is really a great teammate.

00:09:48
And when I think about our work together, on the one side, she’s my taskmaster and making sure that every single day, the things that need to be done and the tasks that we’ve worked together to make sure that are on our list, she’s making sure that I’m getting those done. But on the other side, I always say she’s my human side. I think maybe one of the funny stories when her and I started working together was… like her number one job is to make me human.

00:10:13
And because so much of what we do and work and being in this technical field that we’re in, you know, is really around the technical things and the processes and whatnot. And as an engineer, I have a tendency to move more and more towards those sides and her, you know, caring about people. It really has worked that the two of us, you know, we make even better as teammates when she’s able to help me do those things. And yeah, it’s really good. So a true people manager, right? Yeah, exactly. Yes. And I definitely agree to that, how I met her and how I see her passion for this profession. For sure. For sure.

00:10:49
Absolutely. So coming back to you, Agnes, of course, we want to hear a little bit about your professional background. So how is that story and why actually did you become an assistant?

00:11:01
Yeah, let’s start probably from the beginning. I was born and grown up in Berlin, and it was during the Berlin Wall even.

00:11:10
So when I was out of school, I thought I had really the feeling that I need to go working, go out, meet people, not studying something. So I started an apprenticeship in a hotel industry. So I was really very classical working in a hotel at a reception.

00:11:30
So in that time, I must really say, I learned so much. I mean, you really, this is the best foundation you can have, like, which comes like you learn so many skills you need for the assistance professional, a profession, let’s say. And during the reception time, you have to challenge things. You have to deal with many things. You have to really multitask all the time. You meet so many different nationalities. They all have their different needs. You have to interact super quick. So this is like, you know, things like…

00:12:07
I really enjoyed to learn. And then I moved over to a sales position, but still keeping my passion in the hotel industry. So I traveled a lot. I was working seven years in outside sales.

00:12:22
So within that time, I was like organizing fairs. I was organizing bigger meetings, but also learned like what is important on a business trip? What’s the international airports are? What’s this point of being a frequent flyer, right? Things like basic stuff, but what’s the easiest way to go there and there? But also building up a network, which helps me today so much. Like I know all over the world, like so many hotels and people. So this is like, it’s really a great asset. It helps you totally in your room right now, right? Sending Matt all over the place for business meetings, right?

00:13:02
So that helps me a lot today. And then I felt like I needed a change that always or sometimes it happens like after the seven years, right? I don’t know if you also realize that in your private life, but that seven years period is something that is like a constant thing in my life.

00:13:24
And then I moved actually down to the south of Germany because of private reasons, because of my partner.

00:13:32
And then I was actually working in the financial industry. And I started working with investors on investor relations topics. I was doing roadshows with bigger companies. I was doing investor conferences and stuff like that. And then I got the pleasure to get a daughter. Actually, I went on parental leave and she’s turning six in about three weeks.

00:13:59
And then I was on parental leave afterwards. I decided not to go back to Frankfurt because it’s like quite a quite a ride every day.

00:14:09
And I was searching for a job closer to my home. And then I came to the Freudenberg world.

00:14:16
And there I was really lucky to get that position. I was reading through it. I thought, okay, this is sales. It is still sales. I want to be in sales. I’m a salesperson, right? And so I was like, yeah, hiring or I was getting this job actually. And I was really lucky. That was back in 2018, right?

00:14:36
Yeah, and I mean, why did I want to be an assistant? I mean, I love being an assistant, right? This is always what I say, Matt, when he is asking me, like, can you think about something different? I keep on saying, no, I am perfect where I am. I want to be in that role. And this is like a perfect combination from my background. I can, you know, serve people. people is it like a guest or a team it doesn’t matter i can help people i can like create a foundation of admin stuff which helps like everyone on their daily tasks so they can fully concentrate and focus uh what they really want to do and run business at the moment right or at the end um so

00:15:21
And then together with all the skills I learned in the past, it is like the perfect combination for me. I must really say. It’s so funny that you say that, actually, because yesterday in Vienna, my training, there was an assistant working for the sales director. And the sales director came to her in the one-on-one feedback meeting they had. And he said, aren’t you ready for the next role? And I’m happy to give you a role in my sales department. And she said, no. No, I am full of passion for this assistant role. And of course, it was a wonderful statement from him because he actually saw that role in her and he offered that role. And she said, no, I’m happy what I do. Happy to support you and the team. Happy to dive into the sales topics, obviously, and to become a strategic business partner. But I stay in this role because it’s so full of variety. Yeah. So, and here there’s also coming from you that you are so passionate about the role that you are creating the internal assistant network and of course supporting Matt in his various projects, right?

00:16:26
Yeah. Sometimes I just really say it is crazy what we deal with every day. I mean, we have so many different topics on our desk, but it’s also like, it starts with, I don’t know, even, you know, being kind of an HR role during the crisis when the crisis started, right? I was handling like short work topics, right?

00:16:44
And then, but also like then back to, yeah, manager support, but also like business trips. I have sometimes so many different things on my desk. It is a challenge, but it is what it fulfills me, right? This is what I love. Wearing all these various hats. Absolutely. So thank you so much for giving this little insight about you. So jumping back to Matt. So why don’t you share a little bit about your professional background? background with us and what actually was important towards your development, your career. You’ve been out there for a long time serving various companies, now being with Freudenberg. So excited to hear more about you. Yeah, it’s funny. I just looked, I’m 19 years now with Freudenberg and very often I feel like the young guy in the room.

00:17:37
You know, when I look at the leadership team that we have, the reports to me, and the majority of them are 20, 25, you know, or more years.

00:17:45
And it’s just, it’s the power of Freudenberg. And it’s a really, really great place to work. So coming back to me and my path, you know, we’ve talked about a little bit. I’m an engineer, mechanical engineer by education. I’ve really worked in sales now for 20, 25 years. I had one company that I worked with before I came to Freudenberg, just out of school.

00:18:04
And I’ve always really been in this sales communication area. And I, and I really, really have a passion for it.

00:18:12
And when you talk about my own personal development, when I took my first expat assignment, so it was 2011, you know, expat assignments for, for anyone who has a family, it’s not a, it’s not a career move. It’s a life move. And yeah, And so, you know, my wife and I and my two kids at the time, you know, we discussed it a lot. Is this something that we want to do? And ultimately, we took the challenge and said, yeah, let’s move to Germany. At the time, I had really an amazing boss. I was in an individual contributor role, not in a leadership role. And yeah.

00:18:46
The boss came and said, look, you’re here in Germany. Obviously, you have to do your job, but your number one assignment is learn the language. The number two assignment is learn the culture.

00:18:55
Find a way over the three years that you’re here to really integrate. And he gave me the time and the space to be able to do that and to put the energy in to be able to learn a new culture, certainly learn a new language, which for an American is not often something that we do.

00:19:10
was really life changing. And we got to the end of the three years and really started to have debates within the family of, do we want to go home?

00:19:18
And ultimately, the career, it was the right next step for me to come back to the US. And we were in the US for, I think, four years after that. And it was always weird because

00:19:31
we found ourselves no matter where we were, not really, I don’t want to say not being happy, but always missing the other place. So when we were in Germany, we missed America. When we were in America, we always missed Germany. Um, and when the opportunity came back to, um, to move back to Germany in preparation for the role that I’m in now.

00:19:50
Again, we talked about as a family and we said, let’s do it. This was in 2018. It was in preparation for the current role that I’m in. And we talked about it and we said, let’s take the challenge. But definitely it was different the second time around for two big reasons. One, the kids were older and they had a lot more things that they were involved in. And this

00:20:10
like expat vacationy aspect was kind of gone and it was just kind of real life. Um, but then certainly the other aspect was, was COVID hit. Um, and so when we were in 2020 and, you know, I think had COVID not hit, we’d still be there.

00:20:26
But it was really, we ended up having to make a decision as a family and we saw that we weren’t going to be in Germany forever. And so, you know, having gone through that entire thing, we said family was really important to us. So we came back and I mean, we’re very, very close to where the rest of our family is. So it was the right change to come back, but yeah. Really, now we’re stuck in this.

00:20:46
And I always say we feel like we have two homelands. After six years in Germany, we’re as comfortable there as we are here in the United States. And there’s always things that are going to frustrate us about both places. But it really changed the course of my career. And then it also changed the course of my family and the way that we interact as an overall family. So to me, that’s probably the most developmental thing that’s kind of put me where I am today.

00:21:13
And then the, maybe the, the last part is, you know, as I started to progress within my, um, sales organization that I’m a part of and taking on that role of leader in the organization. And, and especially when I came into this role and again, started working with Agnes in 2019, um, you know, leading such a large team, or, I mean, we’re a billion plus Euro sales organization and, um,

00:21:36
I’d had a vision because I’ve been in this team for 15, 20 years, and I had a vision of what I wanted to do and then to be able to put that into place and to be able to watch the team change and the team develop and really watch the organization start to mold after that vision that I have. And it gives me every single day more and more confidence that we’re doing the right things, that we’re moving in the right direction. And it’s really rewarding.

00:22:02
you know we talked about the appreciator agnes talked about the appreciation and it really is i’m really appreciative of the team that we have and the way that people have accepted this this overall vision that we have so to me those are kind of the three bullet points very interesting and i love how you also include your family of course because it is a family decision going uh you know abroad and especially when the kids are involved So looking back at the first steps of learning a new language for you, your wife, the kids, how tough was it? I mean, German is for sure not the easiest language, right? Yeah, it was one of the hardest things that I’ve ever done.

00:22:41
We had an amazing teacher. We had a…

00:22:45
uh an individual that was that was contracted with our company and she took care of i would say all of the expats and there’s this large global company we do have quite a few expats coming into the headquarters there in weinheim and uh you know the first she spoke no english to us ever really and it was you know the first day was hello

00:23:03
You know, and then it just started from there. There was no book. There was no, you know, there was only the red thread of if I talk and you talk in the end, it will work.

00:23:15
So we did that for, you know, we were there for three years. And I think we had classes for two years and nine months.

00:23:22
And it was both my wife and I separately doing that.

00:23:25
And it was great, really. I mean, it got us to the point where we could really feel like we were integrated. And I saw it with so many of the people that I knew.

00:23:34
When you don’t learn the language, you can’t integrate. No, I agree. And those people at the end of their two years or three years are like, I need to get home as fast as I can. And we were really, you know, in a much different situation. Absolutely. So let’s be honest, Matt, who’s the better speaker, you or your wife? Yeah. uh i have to i mean it’s not fair you know i i was i was in the office especially in the first that first time i was in the office eight eight hours a day and and hearing german you know that entire time um so i certainly in the business sense i have a really strong german language it is funny we talk about my wife my daughter my oldest daughter who is also fluent in in german and myself like together we’re like one german

00:24:19
I love this picture. That’s amazing. So you’re based in Michigan. Agnes is in Weinheim, a full, of course, remote partnership here. When was actually the last time you saw Agnes?

00:24:32
Yeah. So as I mentioned, I was in I was in Weinheim for two weeks in August. So it was a week of vacation with my wife and I. And then we had a week of board meetings and various things that we had to do. And I try, I would say, every four to six weeks right now to be in Germany. We have a really, really large team in our Weinheim office there.

00:24:56
I also know that as travel increases kind of outside of Europe and that it’ll be, I think, less and less that I’m there and more and more that I’m in places around the world. Absolutely. So, Agnes, would you say that the partnership, the remote partnership actually works? And how do you make it work from your side? Yeah.

00:25:16
It definitely does. I can fully agree on that. I mean, I think having like the background that we both work next to each other for almost two years does really help because we know each exactly like how we interact and how probably also our day is structured let’s say um so matt is like also one of the persons who when when he wakes up he flips through his emails and then he’s like you know leaving his laptop probably for a while and then he comes back so these are things i i realized so that helps him probably to flag the most important things to do then he can put probably think about it already or not or whatever, but it helps him on that. So, I mean, we have the opportunity to work next to each other and that helps us today.

00:26:05
Then we obviously had the COVID situation, right? The first lockdown, although we were located in the same location, we couldn’t sit next to each other. So we were already like practicing this remote thing and So using Teams, that was like a challenging time, I must say. I mean, Matt was like, let’s say, 10 hours in a row in calls, right? So it was super tough for me to get hold of him and to kind of reach him. And we were rolling out Teams at that time as well. So Teams was not that common before within the company. So it was like a very challenging but super important time to have this, like, base of our work today. And then obviously, like when he told me like he’s moving back to the US, I was prepared for that.

00:26:57
But then I told him like, Matt, yeah, I mean, for sure. But hold on, I will stay in my working hours, right? I have a daughter.

00:27:05
I want to spend my afternoon with my daughter. I start at 7 a.m. in the morning. And this is what I do when you’re in the U.S. I will, you know, for sure when there are bigger meetings or so, I can always have someone taking care of her. But then I’m flexible. But I want to stay in that working hours. And this is what he agreed on. And then we, yeah, we managed. Fabulous. So what we…

00:27:29
So thank you for that as well. Was there ever a second where you felt like, hmm, is she not flexible anymore? Do I need more flexibility here? Or did you say, no, I fully, fully understand your point here because I have family too and I support that. I mean, I certainly come from that perspective. I have a family and as much as I travel and as much as I’m away, I certainly value the travel time. And I tell all the people, I mean, we work certainly, but you have to take care of your family. And so there was never really a question of saying, okay, can you shift your hours to 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.? That was never really for me an option. If she had volunteered, I probably wouldn’t have said no, but I certainly didn’t expect that. Yeah.

00:28:13
What else is important for you for this virtual collaboration, Matt? Is there anything on your non-negotiable list where you say, this is important for us, we have regular check-ins, we try to see each other face-to-face in a certain amount of time, or is there anything you put on the list where you say that’s important? I think the key item is trust. And we started working together in 2019 and through 2021. And I think we developed certainly a level of trust between each other and certainly understanding how each other worked. And we were able to carry that into this remote style of working.

00:28:50
And for me, when I think about the things that we’re doing, certainly a lot of frequent open communication, we talk very openly with each other about what’s working, what’s not working.

00:29:00
I think whether it’s virtual or not virtual, that’s really important. And then we’re really flexible and really open-minded to try all sorts of different things. And being able to communicate with each other what our expectations are for those. And as an example, I…

00:29:16
I think Agnes understands I text her not by phone, but you know, in teams, I text her a lot at night. So it’s the end of my day and I’m basically offloading the items that I have on my desk. And when she gets in the office, you know, it’s 2am my time and she’s able to take all of those things and progress them. And I actually find that in a lot of ways, some of this stuff becomes really efficient because it’s the end of my day. And I already know that a lot of these items will be done when I start my day, you know, the next day. Yeah, absolutely. It does have definitely advantages, the time zones, right? So speaking of tools, Matt, is there any specific tool where you say that’s my game changer tool that Agnes and I use all the time? You just mentioned Microsoft Teams that has been established. Anything else you say that’s very helpful for us? Yeah, I mean, certainly it’s redundant to say email and Microsoft Teams. Teams really becomes the core, I think, of how the two of us work together.

00:30:14
If you ask me about the things that I use, I have two things that I try to use very regularly. One is Habit Tracker, which is an app, and I think we’ll put it in the show notes for you. Yes, absolutely. I would say it’s not anything special. It just happens to mirror the way that I think. And I think there’s lots of different habit tracker apps that are out there. Another one is Headspace. So trying to do a lot of mindfulness stuff.

00:30:37
And I find that that really helps set me into a place where I’m able to then manage these large groups of people and Certainly manage the emotions and all the things that are coming. And it really helps me a lot. I have one super analog tool that I use. And I know that wasn’t maybe your question, but it’s called Year Compass. It’s something that I would say has been really a game changer for me over the past six or seven years. And it’s a tool that is released every December. It’s free on the Internet. We’ll send you a link to it. And it’s a structured process for setting goals. Certainly, it doesn’t have to be done every single year. But I think a lot of people have the rhythm of saying, you know, at the beginning of New Year, I’m going to set my goals for the year. And I’ve been able to do this. And I now go back, you know, I can go back to 2017, 18. And I have all those goals.

00:31:26
that I’ve created. And then I track them, you know, and I work through them every day. And whether they’re personal goals or professional goals, I really find that it’s something that that I reference, you know, whether it’s daily, or certainly weekly going back and saying, what are the high level things that I want to get done, whether it’s personal or professional, and then really pushing and making sure that I don’t get stuck in the details of things that are maybe dealing with the urgent and not really the important. And as Agnes knows, those goals get laminated because when you create something awesome, you laminate it. That’s just what we do. That is so true. But great tools here. I mean, I’m always super interested in new tools. So it’s a great resource you’re sharing with us. And we’re definitely going to put this in the show notes. So thank you so much. So, Agnes, what about you? Would you add anything? What is on your tool side and what helps you to manage that?

00:32:24
I mean, I definitely need Microsoft to do. Without that tool, I couldn’t survive anymore because that is like it’s always called as my second brain, I would say.

00:32:35
Because I even have it on my mobile device. It is like whenever something comes to my mind, I put it in there. So because then I know, yeah, I get an automatic reminder the next day and I don’t get, you know, or I don’t forget about it or so. And I really love to tick boxes, tick off boxes, right? Yes. I just love that. Me too. Yeah.

00:32:57
This is why I love that tool actually a lot. Then for sure, Microsoft Teams and SharePoint, that’s the communication tool, right? Without that, I couldn’t function. I don’t know. I mean, this is like the best tool ever. I see out of the crisis, which we got released, like because of the crisis probably as well. And then what I use a lot as well is OneNote. That’s more a tool I use, like having like my conversation list with Matt. It’s like a super simple list where I like, you know, bullet point, the most important topics. And then I read down things we have to speak about. And that’s like, yeah, a communication base, let’s say. But also it’s my tool where I store all my files, ideas,

00:33:47
links articles podcasts stuff like that i want to go through and i want to work on uh whenever i have like some spare time and so on so very good i’m a big fan of all of the tools you’ve mentioned just uh especially microsoft too is also one of my game changer tools and as you said ticking the boxes and sharing these um these these to do’s with with you know, colleagues, or in my case, I shared with my husband, you know, we have it as a grocery list shopping and everything. And I always love to see when, yep, he puts the bananas into the basket. So it’s done, mission accomplished. And it’s nice to track it a little bit. So I would like to jump into another field for you, Agnes. I know that is close to your heart. because you’re not only a great right hand to Matt and a wonderful assistant, you also work on the voices of all of the assistants within Freudenberg.

00:34:48
So you are the founder of the internal assistant community. So why is this so important for you? Why did you create the group? It’s still quite new. And what are you currently working on?

00:35:00
So I want to make the assistant’s role more visible, right? So this is what I feel like sometimes we have that company slogan, often invisible, always essential. And that perfectly fits to our role.

00:35:16
We are so essential in the background, but unfortunately, that would probably miss here, often invisible. So what I realized when I started as well, there were no real communication between the departments or the admins, let’s say. I was starting to build a network. I was picking up the phone and just asked, hey, guys, how do you do this? Where can I find this? Topics of onboarding things and so on. So I really started from the scratch. And then…

00:35:52
um i was i was like uh got i got introduced to the uh to your podcast actually which helped i mean that was like probably the big change during the first lockdown you know i was like listening to all the episodes you were recording at that time already and i thought oh my god this is exactly what i feel and this is so this is the best thing i i really realized and then i started to share these things within the other admins i got um

00:36:22
connected to at that time already. And then I got also linked to the LinkedIn group, Future Top Assistants, and I was attending the Microsoft Assistant Week, right?

00:36:33
And out of that, out of all these conversations and articles and sessions, I realized, okay, there is so much more we can do. And obviously we have to start with a network. And then I was like,

00:36:53
Starting in the Weinheim area first, I initiated a regular lunch between the assistants. I’m speaking about our unit, right? In the Vordenberg world, we have that ceiling unit we work for.

00:37:07
And then we started a regular lunch and that was super successful. It was all even before the crisis.

00:37:16
We were meeting a lot of times. We shared knowledge. We were really feeling like, hey, we have to align. We have to be more open-minded. We have to share things. We even can negotiate on contracts much better if we consolidate things and needs and so on.

00:37:37
Then, based on these assistant weeks and so on, speaking to other assistants outside of Freudenberg, where I also like started to grow up my network, I realized, okay, we have to roll out an assistant community. So we have like local assistant communities since a while already. The Weinheim one, it’s like a simple Teams channel. And within that channel, it is really a lot of traffic already. Although we don’t have, yeah, it is really, I mean, it’s like almost on a daily base, we have so many things. It is really amazing and fascinating. So many different topics. So it’s buzzing, right? It is really.

00:38:16
And then out of this, I thought, okay, I have to go out. I want to have this community on an international level. Because I work on international. I work in an international team. So I want to align with other systems based, let’s say, in India or in the U.S. as well, right? Yeah. And then first of all, I went to Matt with my idea, because for me, it was important that my manager supports me in that. And he also allows me that I can spend time on that. So what was your answer, Matt? Full of support right away?

00:38:51
Yeah, actually, actually, it really was. We certainly we talked about resources and limitations and things like that. But as soon as we had clarified that, you know, I look over at my wall, and we have our values kind of our stated values written on the wall. And I see ownership and open minded and people oriented. And here I have someone who’s coming to me saying that they’re trying to bring value to the company by, you know, being able to share and create this network. And

00:39:17
There are stated values, either we love them or we don’t. And that includes me. So for me, the answer was for sure. And I’m sure you support knowledge transfer and networking within the assistant community because at the end of the day, it’s a win for everyone, right?

00:39:33
Agreed. Agreed. Yeah, that’s wonderful. And I remember my friend in Hyatt, who’s a former assistant to Google’s Eric Schmidt, and Jeff Bezos’ assistant, good friend of mine, who’s now actually living in Spain. And I was in Zurich with her two weeks ago, where she had the opening keynote, and I gave the closing keynote at an assistance day. And she always talks about the three wins that Eric Schmidt always said. Whenever you pitch yourself, there needs to be the win for yourself. There needs to be the win for your executive. At the end of the day, it needs to be the win for the organization. And I think you had these three wins ready, Agnes, right? Mm-hmm.

00:40:11
Yeah, absolutely. For sure. And this is like my vision I have. And I mean, then I went out and I was like, you know, asking, we went even public on the portal with an article. And then like within that article, we were like, raising the question like, is there someone out who want to build the core team together with me? And then based on that, the core team got founded. We are five core team members now globally located. So they’re not all in Weinheim, which is great. We have like different aspects to bring into the conversations. And we already created the name and the slogan of our community.

00:40:58
And yeah, and then we also assigned the roles, the different roles, because I made really clear in front of the core team as well from the very beginning, I don’t want to be the leader.

00:41:08
We are all in this together and I don’t have the capacity to run this all on my own. Right. It can’t be. And we have to really like assign roles. And we are we are all on the same level, let’s say so.

00:41:22
and um now my role my assigned role is more or less like on the communication thing so i’m i’m went to whomever i speak to in the community in the con in the sorry in the con organization i always point out what i do very good so yeah and then um also like it’s a matter of um sponsoring thing whenever we we are we’re having our pitch deck um out and fully created which is almost done I will go out to specific managers and go there and see if I can probably have some budget as well, even to run like an in-house meeting, training session, things like that, right? You need these sponsors and I’m glad that also Matt is supporting you, of course, and giving you resources and empowerment here.

00:42:10
And that’s really important that there’s support of the management in the background and, of course, HR and all the other stakeholders. So, when we look at the role of the management assistant in general, Matt, what is your view here? How is the role transforming and what are the skills that are essential?

00:42:29
We all watched COVID hit. We saw almost instantly the role of the assistant really change.

00:42:35
At that time, I was running about 50% travel and that went to zero. We had tons of corporate events that were happening where Agnes was really taking a lead on a lot of those and they went almost for a year, year and a half, they went to zero. And I think any company at that time is starting to look around saying, what is the role of an assistant at that point? And I think

00:42:57
When Agnes talked about, you know, she found your podcast, she found this network on LinkedIn and really searching for what are the things that can make me valuable inside of an organization. It was really important for her to have done that. And then the discussion that happened between her and I, I think she mentioned early on that she was getting involved in HR topics and things. And it was all, you know, the work between her and I to say, how do we make sure that you have a real workload in front of you that’s valuable and bringing value to the company? I think that was important.

00:43:26
And it highlights to me that at the end of the day, it’s a partnership between two people. And when we talk about what is that role to me in an ideal world, you have that pair of people sit down and talk about what their strengths and weaknesses are and what their skills that they have that can make each other stronger.

00:43:45
We talked in the beginning about she’s a people person and I’m an engineer and together we’re able to use those skills to the value of the company. And I think the most important thing is for the two to be able to be flexible, to figure out how they make that strongest team.

00:43:59
Absolutely. And it’s so wonderful to hear this from you, how you really also see the role of the assistant, how it is transforming, how it’s specifically in your case, Agnes can support you in other areas. I mean, I was the same when I was working for my executives. I always wanted more. I pushed for more. I was in charge of internal communications. I was writing speeches. I was a majorly involved in event management, organized the big IFA fair in Berlin, all these kind of things with huge budgets. But I never waited for an invitation unless someone felt like, oh, let’s ask if Diana wants to jump into this project or run this initiative. I wanted to have a seat at the table and I asked for it and I got into an open dialogue with my executive. And it sounds to me like you have these conversations as well. And especially since Agnes knows exactly also what she wants and how she wants to push the assistant community within Freudenberg.

00:44:59
So, Agnes, is there anything else you want to add about your community and about your passion project?

00:45:05
Yeah, I think, I mean, it’s also interesting to see because we have to define the tool actually we are using to run our community, right? Because for sure, as a first guest, we were all saying like, yeah, for sure, it will be launched in Microsoft Teams. And for sure, yes. But then I got introduced to Yammer, which is, I think nowadays, or will be called in the future Viva Engage or so. I don’t know. I really…

00:45:34
I heard about that new name. So Yammer. So that’s a community tool. So I am now part of a test user team. We have the pleasure, we as the assistant community, have the pleasure to test the tool together with two other communities.

00:45:54
And to really like, you know, have like a testing phase to run, post things, use the system how we want to have. We will align afterwards with IT, speak about pros and cons and things like that. And this is what I really love because coming back.

00:46:14
Getting into the role of having a new tool launch probably for the organization is something I really enjoy, I must say. Very good. Yes, I’m glad you mentioned the tool because for sure it is very important to find the right platform to exchange with the other executive assistants. and assistants in general. So Yammer, yeah, I’ve heard the new name for the first time. So let’s see what we’re going to find out. Yeah, quite interesting. I remember I’ve been using Yammer for quite some years and a few companies. It’s always called like the internal Facebook or something. So it’s for sure something that is helpful for your work.

00:46:56
Regarding the transformation of the role of the management assistant, Matt, I would like to come back to you when it comes to titles. And I know title is for sure not always the highest priority, although a few people are definitely relying on their titles. But I would like to share a title with you that Google is using for their assistants for quite some years now, which is executive business partner. And you just mentioned about partnerships. So would you say that this could be a title that we’re going to see more in the future? I certainly know this discussion and I don’t know if maybe my answer is what you hope to hear. I would say that On a macro level, it’s really good conversation to have. I think that way too many businesses and I think way too many executives still look at the role of assistant kind of like it’s portrayed in this TV show, Mad Men.

00:47:49
But in reality, so much has changed. We talked about the pandemic. We’ve talked a lot about the other things that are happening and

00:47:55
But on an individual level, to me, these conversations, they’re so influenced by the unique situations of every company and the individuals that are there. So I would say my answer is it depends. But I will say I do have some concrete advice.

00:48:12
You even kind of mentioned when you said, no, you didn’t ever really in your career wait for the invitation. And I think it’s really great advice to people. Like too often we tell ourselves that if something external to us changes, like then we ourselves will change. And maybe here we focus on the title or a job description or something like this. And we say, if I have a different title, then people will see me differently. And the problem is it’s not real. At the end of the day, it comes from what is it that I’m doing every single day to make myself invaluable to the company. And I do it and Agnes does it. And I’m sure you now is running your own business. You have to do it every day. How do I learn a new skill? How do I grow my responsibility? How do I step myself forward into the next, the next, the next? And the more we all do this as an organization, the easier it is for us to step back and look at

00:49:04
you know, what are we doing in reality and then make the case to our employers that we should be having a different conversation. You know, it’s a promotion, a new title, a pay raise or whatever it is, you know, really taking the steps to do it as an individual. And then the business title, the job description, the pay, whatever the promotion, those things will make sense.

00:49:24
I fully agree to that. Yes, absolutely. And it starts in many situations by leaving the comfort zone. And I know, especially when we look at the role of the assistants, and I just had it actually today in one of my webinars when there was an assistant who clearly stated like, well, my executive is not working with OneNote. Why should I work with it? And I always keep saying, hey, you are investing in yourself, right? And the challenge is always about you. And

00:49:51
understanding a new tool, optimizing a process, getting tech savvy. And this is, of course, the future, the digital competencies. We cannot ignore them. And I felt like, in this case, the comfort zone, she wasn’t ready to leave it. But we all know how dynamic times are. And we see restructurings, and we see new team assignments. And especially assistants, they can work for one executive today and work for another one tomorrow. So I always say, and also for our audience here that is listening to the episode, invest in yourself. I think it’s so important to do that. And then, of course, see how you can transform this investment to your executive and to your organization. Totally agree. Yeah. So speaking of remote leadership, and I would love to hear from Agnes in a second how she describes your leadership style, Matt. But what would you say from an executive perspective that remote leadership has changed the way you lead?

00:50:49
Would you say it was way harder?

00:50:52
Also, a lot of organizations are going hybrid. So give us a little information about the way you lead your teams.

00:51:00
First off, I wouldn’t say that it’s either harder or easier. I would say that it’s the two different styles being remote and in office. They’re really different, both good and both bad.

00:51:14
And I think about 2019, I was in office every day, ran a global team, and I can tell you that was hard.

00:51:21
I spent 2019 living on an airplane and from hotels, and it was because being face-to-face with a global team means you’re always somewhere else.

00:51:31
And I can tell you that the year of 2020 was, you know, on a personal level, it was as difficult as all the things we went through. It was one of the nicest experiences I’ve ever had in 15 years. I can’t tell you, you know, a time when I didn’t go a month without traveling, much less a whole year without, you know, without leaving my house or at least without getting on an airplane. So that great experience that we’ve, or experiment that we’ve been through over these last few years there’s a pendulum that swings. And I think right now it’s swinging really heavy and it’s going in one direction. And I think we’ll also come back.

00:52:06
For remote leadership, I think when relationships are pre-established, I think remote leadership works really, really well. And I think we have that within our team, the leadership team, as I talked about 19 years in the company and I’m the young guy, that relationships really, we are able to leverage that to maintain our culture. i think what doesn’t really work well or at least yet work well is figuring out how to transition long-term uh culture creation and transmission of culture within teams so when we bring someone new on how do we transition to say if we’re in a remote setting that they understand what the culture is and what what it means to be part of our team and i think that’s really really tough um yes

00:52:50
Excuse me. Yeah, you go ahead. Maybe, you know, we are a little bit skewed. We’ve talked a lot about sales. We’re in a sales office and we are by nature really relational people. We need to touch and feel and, you know, it’s not because…

00:53:06
we want managers to be able to control but we want our colleagues to learn from each other and to be in the same place um and it is clear for us that that sales as a just by nature is remote right is that we have to be in front of the customer but the same thing is about our leadership is that we have to be in front of our people and talking to and understanding you know what they need and how they need and and so much of that is just lost you know in a virtual screen

00:53:34
Yes, indeed. And once again, here’s the connection to the role of the assistant, supporting the team, having a feel for the atmosphere. What do we need as a team? How do we need to work on our values, on our commitments? And I think this is one of the core skills here when we come back to the discussion of being a people manager is, to having a feeling, OK, I’m not having the water cooler discussion here because there is no water cooler discussion because we are all remote, but still so connected. And you said that earlier, Matt, that one of the core skills of Agnes is for sure the networking and the building bridges. So I always say also part of this new leadership style is for sure the power of the assistant in the background.

00:54:21
Agnes, what would you say about the leadership style of Matt? Would you say it changed from having him in the room and now being remote? Or what would you say in general about the way he leads the team?

00:54:37
Well, I think in general, what I said earlier already, like Matt fully trusts in the team and in the work we are doing. And that’s a super important point. We all know that. And he also appreciates a lot what we are doing. So this is like, I think the most important that we really all know that, right? Then for sure, I mean, he’s running…

00:55:02
town hall meetings so everyone, even the new people on the team can see him at least virtually, keeping the team updated on latest data, but also on the strategics and on the newest vision and values and things like that. Everything he and the leadership team works on. This is important for him that he’s pretty transparent

00:55:33
What he also does is he’s doing skip-level meetings quite often with the team. So he is meeting different team members, inviting them to either in-person meetings when they’re in the same location, obviously, but also via Teams. And within these meetings, he’s a good listener. He’s trying to understand the challenges we all face every day on our daily work.

00:56:04
But he’s also like, you know, connecting to the people a bit on a private life, right? To really keep like the relationship we had already alive, right? So this is like super important. And I know that these type of meetings are really appreciated by the team as well.

00:56:24
And he’s always available. Whenever you have something, you need advice or you really have difficulties or so on, everyone knows that they can really reach out to Matt. They don’t hesitate. That’s wonderful. So I hear a lot of kudos here coming out of this, the things you just said about Matt, which is wonderful. So why don’t we end the conversation of giving a few more kudos to Agnes. Matt, is there anything you specifically, my English is gone, specifically want to address to her, especially when you look back at the collaboration you are in and also the way she’s supporting you?

00:57:07
Yeah, for sure. I think we’ve covered a couple of the big key items. We talked about trust and ownership. And I think that it’s one of the things that I see very much with Agnes is that she really has that trusting relationship together with me. And I’m fully confident she takes ownership for the things that she’s doing. And for me, that’s really, really important. And I really appreciate it.

00:57:30
I appreciate really her desire to grow in whatever way she can. I mean, we’ve talked about, you know,

00:57:37
Different examples of things that assistants might grow into and she was really clear. I love my job. I love what I’m doing. But it also doesn’t mean that she wants to be stagnant. And I, you know, I’m always pushing the people around me and I push myself to grow and in whatever way that means I really appreciate that. She is looking for ways to be better, better for herself, not necessarily just better for me or for the team, but just to be better.

00:58:02
I really appreciate the deep passion that she has for helping others. I see it and I really, really saw it over the last three years, both as my assistant who was working with me as an expat, but I saw her stepping in to fill gaps where the organization was not.

00:58:20
uh maybe doing what we thought was the right amount of support for some of the other expats that were within our organization and and she was really saying you know someone’s got to do it and i’m going to do it because you know at the end it’s just caring for people um of course the networking superpower right i don’t have it and and she does and i really appreciate that and maybe the last one is is the friendship you know she mentioned in the beginning and i would echo what she said Um, I’ve always said, and my wife and I’ve talked about this, you know, the partnership that you develop with an assistant over time is, is to a certain extent, kind of intimate in the way that, I mean, I’ve always joked if my, um, if my identity is ever stolen, Agnes is the first person that I’m going to call. She has everything. She knows every single thing about me. Um, and, and, and, but over time it develops, you know, or can develop into a friendship. And I think with, with Agnes and I, that’s definitely true.

00:59:15
That is such great kudos what we’re hearing here. And I definitely can echo what you just said, Matt. And in many cases, I always or I got the call from my executive and the first call always came to me and then the wife got the call.

00:59:33
When something happened, it was always the assistance numbers first and then the call to the wife. So, I mean, it’s always wonderful to see when these partnerships are running. And I definitely hear this here from the conversation. We had so much appreciation for both of you for giving out a little insight about the way you collaborate, about the way you look at change, about the way you have been transforming through the COVID time. And it was a wonderful opportunity for me to talk to you both and to get a little bit more information about your working style. We’re going to cover, of course, everything you’ve been sharing, especially Matt, thanks for all the tools you gave away. A few new tools for me as well. I’m definitely going to check out the Habit Tracker website. And we’re going to put all of this into the show notes. So everybody who’s listening to us, make sure you check out show notes.

01:00:26
We’re going to share a little bit of information there. You also have the opportunity to connect with Agnes and Matt over LinkedIn. So you’re going to find their links in there. And I can only say, assistants, get in touch with Agnes. She’s full of passion.

01:00:40
She is going to bring the assistant community within Freudenberg for sure to the next level. And of course, she is ready to share her knowledge. And this is what I really adore about you, Agnes, that you share knowledge, that you open up your network and help others to grow. And so kudos also from my side to you. Thank you. very welcome so thank you so much for being here on the future system podcast very excited to release this episode uh all the best to you and be safe thank you thank you so much Diana

01:01:15
I would like to remind you to check out the show notes because there are two links waiting for you that Matthew has been mentioning. The habit list and the year compass. And you’re going to find also the LinkedIn links to the profiles to Matthew and Agnes. So make sure you reach out to them, especially Agnes, of course. Wonderful to have her out there as a strong voice for supporting assistance. for setting up internal assistant networks. And I can only say thank you so much to both of you for being on the show today. Wishing you all the best.

I had the honor of speaking with Maaike Knoester for an interview on the 5 Star Assistant Podcast to discuss my 20-year career as an Executive Assistant, my book The Leader Assistant, and the journey of producing over 360 episodes of my own podcast.

In this conversation we talk about challenging misconceptions about our profession. The greatest misunderstanding is that EAs are merely “one-trick ponies” focused on scheduling and expenses. In reality, we are strategic partners who see the whole picture for our executives. Internally, the biggest barrier I see is a lack of confidence, often stemming from attaching personal worth to job performance.

To combat burnout and build a sustainable career, I emphasize two core principles:

• Detach your worth from your work. Your value as a person is separate from your job performance.
• Set clear boundaries. I made it a point with my current executive to log off on the weekends because you cannot truly help others long-term if you don’t take care of yourself.

Finally, when it comes to being busy, I see “multitasking” not as doing two things at once, but as the critical skill of prioritizing and context switching effectively between diverse responsibilities.

Thank you, Maaike, for the opportunity to be on your show, and for asking such great questions!

CONNECT WITH MAAIKE

• Maaike on LinkedIn
• 5 Star Assistant Podcast

ABOUT MAAIKE KNOESTER

With over 20 years of experience as a trainer and coach, Maaike Knoester helps support professionals own their 5-Star Value and raise their profile. Not by working even harder, but by taking their place with powerful personal leadership. True 5-Star Assistants are instantly recognizable. Not only by the way they perform their work—with precision, strength, and impact—but especially by how they see themselves: as an indispensable force in the organization.

–––

THE LEADER ASSISTANT ACADEMY

Enroll in the on-demand, AI-powered professional development resource for Leader Assistants who want to level up. Learn more -> The Leader Assistant Academy.

THE LEADER ASSISTANT BOOK

Download the first 3 chapters of The Leader Assistant: Four Pillars of Game-Changing Assistant for FREE here or buy it on Amazon and listen to the audiobook on Audible. Also, check out the companion study guide, The Leader Assistant Workbook, to dig deeper.

JOIN THE FREE COMMUNITY

Join the Leader Assistant Global Community for bonus content, job opportunities, and to network with other assistants who are committed to becoming leaders!

THE LEADER ASSISTANT PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP

To learn more about how you can join growth-minded Leader Assistants, check out our Leader Assistant Premium Membership for ongoing training, coaching, and community.

LEADER ASSISTANT LIVE EVENTS

Check out our constantly updated schedule of events for admins and assistants at LeaderAssistantLive.com.

SUBSCRIBE

Subscribe to The Leader Assistant Podcast so you don’t miss new episodes!

You can find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pandora, and Stitcher.

Join my email list here if you want to get an email when a new episode goes live.

LEAVE A REVIEW

If you’re enjoying the podcast, please take 2 minutes to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Each review helps me stay motivated to keep the show going!

–––

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Intro: 00:06
The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, game-changing leader assistants.

Maaike: 00:19
Welcome to the Five Star Assistant Podcast, and this is in English for my Dutch listeners. This isn’t English now, because I have a special guest, very special, from the US, and it’s Jeremy Burroughs. Jeremy, welcome to the show.

Jeremy: 00:38
Hey, thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Maaike: 00:41
Yeah, so am I, because when I started the podcast, the Five Star Assistant Podcast, I was looking for examples and I saw the Leader Assistant Podcast showing up as the only one at that time. That was 2019. So to me, you’re a great example of using your voice for assistance. So thank you so much for inspiring me to do the same thing here in uh in Holland and Belgium.

Jeremy: 01:11
Yeah, you’re welcome, and I’m glad that uh I’m glad to be speaking with another podcast host for sure.

Maaike: 01:17
Yeah. Yeah, so let me introduce you a little bit, and then of course you can introduce yourself furthermore. Um you are an executive assistant, like senior executive assistant, so for a long time now, you also um wrote a book, not only the podcast, but you also wrote the book The Leader Assistant Pot uh The Leader Assistant, where you use also the four pillars um as an important piece of yeah, I would say like to become a five-star assistant, maybe that’s that’s uh a bit familiar. And you’ve done um, I think 360 episodes, so that’s quite impressive.

Jeremy: 02:02
Thank you. Yeah, it’s been a lot, it’s been a lot, but it’s been fun. Yeah, I’m currently senior executive assistant to the CEO of a software company based out of St. Louis, Missouri. We have over 400 employees all over the world. Our company’s called Capacity. Uh, we’re in the AI-powered support automation software platform uh industry, and so I was hired number one. We started in January 2017 and uh yeah, been there ever since, and it’s been a fun ride, and I love being an assistant, and I think this is my 20th year as an executive assistant.

Maaike: 02:38
Cool. So, yeah, I always ask my guests at first what their guilty pleasure is. So can you reveal what it is to you?

Jeremy: 02:50
Oh, you know, I’d probably say uh there’s a couple treats that I really like to eat that are super unhealthy and probably full of chemicals. Uh, I don’t know if they probably don’t even have these um in your country, but they’re called uh I think they’re from Hostess and they’re called zingers. They’re like chocolate, they’re almost like Twinkie, chocolate Twinkies with chocolate icing and and you know white cream filling. Um but that’s kind of one of those things where it’s very unhealthy, but every once in a while I’ll swing by the gas station and pick up a pack because I really like them.

Maaike: 03:29
Yeah, and it gives you a little joy at the moment, so makes you and then and then and then maybe a little bit of regret afterwards. But oh yeah, yeah, that was that that’s why it’s guilty pleasure, of course. Yeah, great. And can you tell me a little bit more where you live, with whom?

Jeremy: 03:46
And yeah, so I live in Kansas City, Missouri, right in the middle of the United States. I was uh raised here. I was actually born in Virginia, but I moved to Kansas City when I was one, and so I’ve been here most of my life. I did live in uh St. Louis for about 16 years, uh, met my wife there, had our kids there. We have two boys, um, and then we moved back here during COVID in 2020. And so my uh let’s see, my boys are 12 and 14.

Maaike: 04:20
Okay.

Jeremy: 04:21
And they’re in soccer, um, baseball. My oldest plays violin. Um, so yeah, it’s uh it’s fun, fun ages and uh fun time, me and a dad for sure.

Maaike: 04:36
Nice. And and baseball is also one of your um big passion, right?

Jeremy: 04:44
Yeah, I love baseball. Uh, I played a little bit when I was a kid, and I love going to baseball games and taking my son to baseball, and um, yeah, it’s fun uh fun times for sure.

Maaike: 04:57
Yeah, so yeah, I’m very um curious, of course, what in March 2019 you launched the Leader Assistant Podcast. Um, what made you decide to start the podcast?

Jeremy: 05:13
Yeah, I would uh I would say I’ve I’ve always had kind of an audio production background and interest in it. And when I had my prior role, I had done some audio editing, some podcast work. So, and then I did some music, I was into music a lot. So when I was doing, when I started off as assistant training and coaching, speaking for executive assistants all over the world, I thought, you know, maybe someday I’ll do a podcast. Well, I didn’t want to start one until I was ready and had enough content that I felt like I could actually keep going. Because when I first launched, there were not very many podcasts out there for assistants. Uh, and the few that were out there um were not updated or hadn’t been updated in a long time. And so I figured if I could, one, I like the medium and I enjoy audio production. I enjoy doing the editing myself and deciding what to cut or what.

Maaike: 06:15
You like the technical stuff.

Jeremy: 06:17
Yeah, I like the technical stuff.

Maaike: 06:19
Yeah.

Jeremy: 06:19
Um, but two, I obviously, you know, I like the medium of podcasting as far as reaching people all over the world and helping people all over the world. Yeah. But again, I wanted to do it really well. I didn’t want to um kind of go in with you know one foot one toe in. I wanted to go all in. And so in 2019, I had enough blogs written, I had enough of a network, I had enough, I had more experience, and I thought, you know what, I’ll just see if I can schedule out, you know six months or a year worth of podcast content. Oh, yeah. And if I could, if I could, then I would go ahead and start the podcast. So I started mapping it out, and I was like, I think I have enough content to produce a weekly episode. Yeah. And so fast forward uh so March 2019, and then uh now we’re in 2026, and I’ve published over 360 episodes. I’ve only missed two weeks. There, there’s two holidays in 2019, I think.

Maaike: 07:20
That is so good, like it’s so consistent.

Jeremy: 07:24
Yeah, it’s been a lot, it’s been a lot, but I’m proud to say that I’ve kept it up and I crossed over a million downloads in early 2025, and that was my goal when I set out to get to a million downloads.

Maaike: 07:36
Okay, congratulations on that.

Jeremy: 07:38
Thank you.

Maaike: 07:38
I guess my goal is two million now, but yeah, raised your goals.

Jeremy: 07:43
So yeah, so that’s kind of why I uh I kicked off and and have have been going ever since.

Maaike: 07:49
Yeah, yeah, and and I read uh on your website and I think in your book as well, that you are you see yourself as a as an introvert. So that raised the question to me from okay, so what what helped you to choose for visibility? Because with yeah, with speaking for public, with your podcast, you are uh you are yeah, not only behind the scenes, but right in front.

Jeremy: 08:20
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s one of those things where I’m an introvert, but if I prepare and plan, then I can present, I I speak, I do training, um, I enjoy that element and helping people in that way. Um, I just have to prepare a lot. And so it’s a lot easier. It’s kind of sounds a little uh a little outside the box, but for a high introvert like me, I would rather go on stage in front of a thousand people and present a keynote than then go to a party with 25 people and try to make small talk.

Maaike: 09:02
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because does it have to do with your expertise that it’s like you can really share like yeah the content?

Jeremy: 09:14
Yeah, it’s it’s partly that. And then it’s just like when you’re in a uh social setting, there’s a lot of small talk, which I don’t enjoy small talk. Um, I like to skip that part and get into deep conversations about interesting topics. Um and I also I also just enjoy like preparing and and coming up with my my bullets and my slides and my stories and just kind of integrating everything together into a story arc and and so yeah, I think it’s a little eas a little easier to do that when you have time to prepare and present to people.

Maaike: 09:53
So yeah, exactly. A lot of preparation. So okay. What do you believe is the one thing most people misunderstand about being an executive assistant?

Jeremy: 10:08
Oh, that’s a tough question. Um I would say most people, executives, professionals uh in the corporate world don’t understand the weight that executive assistants carry. Um, when it comes to discretion and confidentiality, when it comes to seeing all sides of the elephant, if you will, there’s that old analogy, it’s like, oh, I I think this is a giraffe, or I think this is a whatever, and then you turn the light on and it’s an elephant, elephant, because only people can only see the one part of that they see. And I think assistants, assistants can see the whole picture more often than others, and I think people don’t understand that. People think that we are one-trick ponies, and that we do scheduling, uh, travel and expenses and other duties as assigned, and they don’t see that we are actually strategic in our perspective and strategic in our action right.

Maaike: 11:25
Yeah, there’s a lot more to it. Yeah. Yeah. And and that’s the thing also um w what what do you see on the other side with assistants that they might not accelerate or might not live to their full potential? Because you talk about the leader assistant, so that’s not someone who is only um oh I I don’t know the word in English now. It’s not one who only does what’s being told, but she’s a leader or he’s a leader. And so what did you see with assistants that they hold back or yeah, I think that the number one thing is that assistants lack confidence, myself included, and we don’t lack generally speaking, we don’t lack the skills, right?

Jeremy: 12:29
We just lack the confidence. And so uh a lot of times that comes down to simply put, we attach our worth as human beings to our work as assistants. And what I mean by that is in my career, I was the least confident when I was attaching my worth as a human being to my work. And if I did well, then I was yeah, I felt good, I felt I had a high ego, I was confident and cocky, more than confident.

Maaike: 13:06
Yeah.

Jeremy: 13:07
Um, but then if I was if I made a mistake or if I received criticism or even constructive feedback from my executive, I’d feel that disapproval and it would wreck me, it would ruin me. I would feel like a worthless person because I failed in my job. And so then that would destroy my confidence and it would destroy my ability to lead. And so I think the bottom line, and I talk a lot about this in the book, but also when I do my trainings, is um if we can detach our worth uh as human beings from our work as assistants, that actually frees us to be confident and lead because we don’t care if we get the full approval of our colleagues and our executive. We just care about doing good work and we know that it doesn’t impact us and it doesn’t impact our value as people.

Maaike: 13:58
Yeah, you don’t have to prove yourself anymore, like being Right. Yeah. And then there’s something also when I hear you tell me this, there’s something like perfectionism, which I see a lot with assistants that uh perfectionism can really be a killer for enjoying the work and yeah, allowing yourself to grow. You need to make mistakes.

Jeremy: 14:23
Yeah, and I would say that, and I would call that control. I would say our desire for control or micromanaging and you know being perfect and controlling the environment so that we can we can excel uh in a certain way. Uh a lot of times that’s related to the root of it is control, or we feel anxious and we worry when we feel like we’re losing the control that we thought we had. Um but then other times it’s approval. Uh and so you’re trying to be perfect because you want the approval of somebody. So there’s a there’s a there’s a lot to dive into there that we have to do a long session for that.

Maaike: 15:01
Well, my trainings also are the goal is to be more confident, and I think also I like what you say, like game, game-changing, um uh yeah, confident game-changing assistance. Because that’s also what I see. It’s it’s a lot of yeah, it’s just insecurity, actually.

Jeremy: 15:24
Definitely, definitely.

Maaike: 15:25
Yeah, I have a question from uh she posted it on LinkedIn when she knew that you were coming to the show from uh Caroline, Caroline. Um she asked, what is your view on mental health for assistance?

Jeremy: 15:40
Yeah, I mean I talk a little bit to the importance of again detaching your worth from your work. Um but also I think that I talk a lot about burnout uh boundaries and really being aware of the lack of boundaries uh with your executive and with your team. And I think that it’s very important for us as assistants because the problem is um we actually care more than most people. Uh we care about our executives, we care about their families, we care about our team members, and we want to help people. But the problem is that that’s obviously a strength of being an assistant, is we care so much. Yeah, however, the problem is we can care so much that we care about other people more than we care for ourselves. And so that that causes us to um burn out, have mental health issues, have physical health issues, stress-induced illness, uh, because we don’t take care of ourselves because we’re like, well, we’re we’re sacrificing our time and our energy and and our health for the benefit of others, and we feel we feel noble and we convince ourselves that it’s it’s a noble thing to do. But the reality is you can’t actually help other people for very long if you don’t take care of yourself.

Maaike: 17:10
Exactly. Yeah, I totally totally agree. So you say boundaries. So would you say if if people listening and and they do feel like, oh yeah, I’m I’m really loose on that one, is is that the one thing for you that made a change to set healthier boundaries?

Jeremy: 17:32
Yeah, I think uh it’s one of the things that when I started working with my current CEO, executive, I said, listen, I’m going to be the best assistant you’ve ever had, and I’m gonna work my tail off, but I’m also going to log off on the weekends, right? Like so, unless it’s truly urgent, which urgent is rarely urgent, right? Uh we our executives and our colleagues just convince themselves that these things are urgent. But the reality is most things can wait uh till Monday. And so I just said I’m gonna work like crazy, but then I’m also gonna log off and enjoy my time off. So I’m gonna work hard and I’m gonna work well, but I’m also gonna rest well. Yeah, and so that was a big part of setting up that.

Maaike: 18:24
To say that in advance, like this is the the person I am, this is the way I like to work with you.

Jeremy: 18:30
Yeah, and it’s hard to say it. I I said it to my prior executive, I didn’t say it in advance, I said it six after six years working with him. Uh and it was a little bit more challenging because I basically was like, hey, we can’t, we can’t keep going at this pace, it’s not sustainable.

Maaike: 18:47
Yeah.

Jeremy: 18:47
Um so that’s a little bit more difficult of a conversation to have.

Maaike: 18:51
Yeah, yeah, but to act, yeah. In the end you have to be clear, right?

Jeremy: 18:57
Yeah, yep, yep.

Maaike: 18:59
So let me see. Uh a question. Yeah, that’s uh another one. Uh Isabel DeWitt, uh, she wrote the book, um, management assistant, superhero of the company. And she’s like you, she loves to write, and she is an assistant herself. And she would like to know um what was your drive to write the book, The Leader Assistant, and what kept you going, even in the moments when the writing process was challenging and heavy. I guess she can tell from her experience.

Jeremy: 19:34
Yeah, yeah, Isabella. Writing a book, as you know, is very challenging. Um, I think the key thing for me was it was very emotionally draining. There were some days I was very excited, and I thought these ideas were gonna change the world, and then the next day I thought nobody’s gonna read this, and the people that do read it are gonna hate it. So it’s like this roller coaster of emotions the whole time you’re writing it. And so what kept me going was like, listen, the two the two biggest things that kept me going were one, I had I had done enough work with assistants. I had shared these ideas for many years before I you know curated them into the book. So I had seen that these ideas had helped assistants. Maybe not every assistant, but a lot of assistants had directly told me, hey, these are helpful, this is really, you know, and executives too. Hey, this concept is very helpful for my executive assistant and I. These have been helpful. So I had some validation, right? So that kind of helped me keep going. Like, hey, you know what, this isn’t, I’m not just pulling these things out of thin air and hoping they stick. I’ve been writing about these same concepts and ideas for years, and they’ve they’ve received good feedback.

Maaike: 20:52
Yeah.

Jeremy: 20:52
But the other thing that kept me going was the idea of this this uh similar to what I did with the podcast, the the medium of a book is such a low barrier to entry to get help. So you can you can spend $15, $20 to buy a book or to listen to an audiobook, and you can learn a lot, and it can be very helpful. And so, anyone in the world can go on their local or or their retail site and download the book or get the book shipped or print it or listen to it. So it’s very scalable. So I could take all these ideas and reach as many people as who want whoever wanted to accept the ideas, they could they could actually find them. And it was very low cost. So, you know, it’s not that difficult of an ask to say, hey, will you buy this book? Or even some people get it in their libraries, right? They ask, they request it at their library and they don’t even pay for it, they use it, use it through the library.

Maaike : 22:01
Yeah.

Jeremy: 22:02
So that kind of kept me going too. It’s like, hey, you know what, this is going to help a lot of people that can’t afford a coaching session or can’t afford a course or can’t afford to go to some event in a different city.

Maaike: 22:13
Yeah. Oh, so cool. Yeah. And it’s really a book that it’s it’s about also mindset. But the second part is way more practical. So if you want to have some tools or how do you communicate with your executive or uh meetings or scheduling, that’s all in there as well. So it’s it has both sides of it.

Jeremy: 22:39
Yeah, I tried to be I tried to be very practical, like a guide that you can just open up to the chapter on email management if you’re trying to figure out how to manage your executive’s email. You can skip to the trap chapter on communication if you’re having a communication breakdown with your executive or your team.

Maaike : 22:56
Yeah.

Jeremy: 22:56
And just wanted to make it very practical. But also, again, I’m passionate about hey, you can’t, I didn’t want to just write a guide that didn’t also talk about self-care and burnout and leadership.

Maaike: 23:11
Yeah, yeah. And and the one big question we have here in this part of Europe, Holland and uh Belgium, is um there’s not many male assistants. I could maybe if I’m guessing, I didn’t really do research on it, but I’ve seen less of them, way less of them, in my trainings. I would say one on 50 would be a male assistant. Um that’s different in in the US, isn’t it?

Jeremy: 23:42
Uh it’s not uh it’s not really, I think 90% plus assistants are female. And so it’s definitely rare. It’s definitely rare to have to have a male assistant. And so I’ve, you know, I’ve been called um you know she or her or or uh whatever a few times on emails because they just assume that my executive’s assistant uh is female. But I don’t mind. I you know, I tell people I get asked this question like what’s it like being a male assistant in a female-dominated industry? And I really have nothing to complain about. I’m grateful for the opportunity. I love being an assistant. I I really uh appreciate the the career opportunities that it gives you. You can take your skill set as an assistant and you can go from the nonprofit world like I did into the for-profit software AI world. Yeah. It translates really well. Um and then, you know, I I’m very privileged as a white male in America, and so being in a profession where I happen to be a minority is like really the only place that I’m a minority in my country, and so um I I have nothing to complain about.

Maaike: 25:02
No, and and the funny thing is because would there be a difference in in uh in how you do the job uh if you’re female or male? And there’s a funny question from uh uh an assistant here in Belgium. She attended a workshop uh I gave, and she asked, like, what would multitasking for a man look like? Maybe it’s different from how a woman is multitasking, because they say that women can multitask um better than how how does that work out for you?

Jeremy: 25:39
Well, I mean, I would say I’m definitely a wannabe multitasker. Uh I know that it’s uh it’s a challenge, and I think the key key for me is I I can’t really say much about the difference there, but I think the key for me when it comes to multitasking is to remember that it’s not it’s not really the the request or the ask to do two things at once. It’s more I need to be able to prioritize and context switch often. Often. So even today, you know, I was on a call with my executive’s uh wife, and we were talking about travel plans, so I booked a flight, and then I had to context switch over to my parents who live across the street, their sewage line, sewer ladder line uh collapsed in their yard, and they’re and the plumbers out there digging up the whole yard, and so I had to run over there and and you know, right after that phone call, right before I talked, uh hopped on the podcast here with you, Micah. Uh I had to run over there and check in with my dad and make sure, make sure everything was okay. And I slipped and I fell in the mud. And you know, so it’s like I wasn’t doing I wasn’t doing uh the podcast at the same time that I was on the phone with my executive’s wife the same time that I was slipping in the mud, but I did have to, I had, I did have to context shift and and change where my head was for each of those things.

Maaike: 27:16
And your clothes.

Jeremy: 27:17
And I literally had to change my clothes too.

Maaike: 27:19
Yes. Yes. All right. Um well let me just end by, of course, I’ll I’ll ask um where people can find you and connect to you, but where do you see yourself in five years from now?

Jeremy: 27:36
Well, five years from now, my youngest son will be, I guess, a junior in high school or something like that. And then my older son will be out of high school. And my hopefully I’ll have written another book. I’ve got a few books uh that I’m working on I wanna I want to publish. Um and I think I’m hopeful that I’ll have the opportunity and be blessed to have the opportunity to continue to speak with assistants and train assistants and coach assistants and um really just do what I love, uh, which is helping other people. Uh, but specifically, I really am passionate about helping assistants. So hopefully in five years I’ll still be doing that and enjoying my uh my boys as they’re uh growing older post-high school stage.

Maaike: 28:28
Yeah, that will be a whole new error. Thank you. So thank you so much for your time, Jeremy. I know you’re very busy, um, but it was very nice to meet you in person. Um, where can people connect with you if they want to know more?

Jeremy: 28:46
Yeah, thanks, Micah. I appreciate it. Appreciate all you’re doing for the community on your side of the world for sure, and um I’m happy that you you asked me to be here and thanks for your patience as I was cleaning the mud off of my uh my hands. Uh but yeah, leaderassistant.com is the best place to reach out. Uh LinkedIn is great too, but leaderassistant.com, um that’s where my info on my book, my podcast, my uh LeaderAssistant Academy online program, and then uh uh lots of other resources. So would love to love to hear from your listeners. And if anybody’s listening that wants to just reach out and say hi again, leaderassistant.com or ping me on LinkedIn. I’d love to love to connect.

Maaike: 29:32
Yes, great. They probably will. And um, it’s also good to mention that your book, The Leader Assistant, uh, can be um bought here on uh bowl.com. That’s our version of Amazon.

Maaike : 29:47
Yeah.

Maaike: 29:47
So you can just um buy it online. All right, thank you, Jeremy, for your time.

Jeremy: 29:52
Yeah, no problem. All right, well, take care.

Maaike: 29:54
Yes, you too. Bye bye.

Diana Brandl is a longtime C-Suite assistant, and host of the Executive Office Insights podcast.

In this spotlight episode, explore how service skills evolve into strategy as Heleen Vink shares her path from hospitality to supporting the CEO of Ingka Group (IKEA), the calendar audit that reset priorities, and the systems that protect deep work and drive stakeholder engagement. Heleen and Diana also outline how to build an internal assistant network and keep balance through community and creativity.

Topics covered:

• hospitality foundations shaping executive support
• moving from generalist skills to a stakeholder specialty
• the structure and roles inside a lean CEO support team
• how to run a calendar audit and turn data into priorities
• setting non‑negotiables like protected work‑alone time
• building an internal assistant network with clear purpose
• learning by doing: speeches, reports, and projects
• finding your voice and influence with direct feedback
• sustainable work life balance through support systems
• music as a tool for confidence, presence, and renewal

Enjoy!

CONNECT WITH HELEEN

• Heleen on LinkedIn

ABOUT HELEEN

Heleen Vink is Management Assistant supporting the Deputy CEO & CFO at Ingka Group | IKEA, by contributing to strategic processes & planning and seamless, efficient daily operations with a focus on CEO Relations & Stakeholder Engagement within the business and beyond.

Heleen also leads the development of an internal community dedicated to Assistants, Business Support Assistants, Coordinators and others who focus on supporting leaders and Group Functions at Ingka Group | IKEA – and beyond.

Ingka Group consists of three business areas;

– IKEA Retail, which consists of 392 IKEA stores across 32 markets, and counting. Welcoming 657 million visitors to these stores last year, and having more than 4.3 billion visits to https://www.ikea.com/.

– Ingka Centres creates great meeting places where each centre is anchored by an IKEA store.

– Ingka Investments makes responsible investments in the core business, or in areas that add value for customers allowing growth across IKEA Retail business.

Heleen started at IKEA in 2011 and previously worked as Executive Secretary (Chief Sustainability and Chief HR) and Global Stakeholder Engagement Leader within the Global Public Affairs team. She has a degree in Hotel & Hospitality Management where prior to IKEA, she worked for 10 years with hotel operations, sales and event management.

Heleen has a particular passion for Climate Action and Equality topics, is married and has two young children.

ABOUT EXECUTIVE OFFICE INSIGHTS with DIANA BRANDL

Executive Office Insights is a podcast for executive support professionals hosted by Diana Brandl – an accomplished trainer, consultant, coach, and former C-suite senior executive assistant with nearly two decades of experience at renowned international companies, this podcast dives deep into the evolving world of executive excellence.

Diana explores the critical themes shaping the modern workplace, including leadership dynamics, digital transformation, AI, and the future of work. Featuring insightful conversations with a diverse range of German and English-speaking experts, each episode equips listeners with actionable insights and strategies to thrive in the ever-changing executive office landscape.

–––

THE LEADER ASSISTANT ACADEMY

Enroll in the on-demand, AI-powered professional development resource for Leader Assistants who want to level up. Learn more -> The Leader Assistant Academy.

THE LEADER ASSISTANT BOOK

Download the first 3 chapters of The Leader Assistant: Four Pillars of Game-Changing Assistant for FREE here or buy it on Amazon and listen to the audiobook on Audible. Also, check out the companion study guide, The Leader Assistant Workbook, to dig deeper.

JOIN THE FREE COMMUNITY

Join the Leader Assistant Global Community for bonus content, job opportunities, and to network with other assistants who are committed to becoming leaders!

THE LEADER ASSISTANT PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP

To learn more about how you can join growth-minded Leader Assistants, check out our Leader Assistant Premium Membership for ongoing training, coaching, and community.

LEADER ASSISTANT LIVE EVENTS

Check out our constantly updated schedule of events for admins and assistants at LeaderAssistantLive.com.

SUBSCRIBE

Subscribe to The Leader Assistant Podcast so you don’t miss new episodes!

You can find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pandora, and Stitcher.

Join my email list here if you want to get an email when a new episode goes live.

LEAVE A REVIEW

If you’re enjoying the podcast, please take 2 minutes to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Each review helps me stay motivated to keep the show going!

–––

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00
Hey friends, thanks for tuning in to the Leader Assistant Podcast. I’m excited to share another spotlight episode of my friend Diana Brandl’s show, Executive Office Insights. Be sure to check out the show notes for more information about her show and today’s featured guest. But in the meantime, enjoy this conversation and keep leading well.

00:00:28
The Leader Assistant podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, game-changing leader assistants.

00:00:42
Check out the show notes for this episode at leaderassistant.com/372.

00:00:47
To be honest, it is not easy to impress me, but this lady did, and I’m glad I met her live during one of my trainings last year. I was blown away by the way she looks at the profession, how she’s challenging the profession, what she’s doing in her role as a CEO coordinator, and what she plans to do around setting up an internal assistant network.

00:01:09
She is supporting the CEO of Ingka Group, which is IKEA. And you can only imagine how busy this man is. Well, luckily he has Heleen. She takes care of him and has a bunch of wonderful colleagues around her who really make the executive successful. I’m very happy to introduce you to her because she has a lot of talents to share with us. And by the way, one of them is singing.

00:01:34
It is a pleasure of welcoming a great assistant who is really a game changer out there in our profession. And I got to meet her personally. Can you imagine that? Because sometimes I get to sit with guests and I’ve never met these people, probably will never meet them in person. in the real life. But in this case, I was in a meeting room with her for a long time and I got to see her live and I got to see how she looks at our profession. And this is why I knew immediately I need to have her on the show. So I’m glad she said yes.

00:02:05
So welcome, everybody. Here’s the wonderful Heleen Vink.

00:02:09
Hey, Diana. Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to reconnect. And thanks for inviting me to the podcast. I’m excited.

00:02:16
You know, and I told her already that I was nervous about pronouncing the name because it’s not a German name. It sounds maybe a bit Dutch to a lot of people probably who are familiar. And it’s true, right? So you are a native Dutch, right?

00:02:29
I am. Yep. Born and raised. And I have the luxury of working very close to where I grew up. Yeah.

00:02:37
And I learned earlier that you’re based in Leiden, which is not too far from Amsterdam. So is this your base for a long time already?

00:02:47
Yeah, it’s been home base for my entire IKEA career, actually, which is a little bit over 11 years.

00:02:55
In various roles, as I think we’ll get into. But yeah, it sits 20 minutes south of Amsterdam and then 20 minutes south from there is home for me.

00:03:05
It’s a lovely place. I recommend anybody coming to the Netherlands to check it out.

00:03:10
And we have a strong Dutch base here, listeners from the Netherlands. And one of the first episodes I recorded was with my dear friend Jannie, who for sure is going to listen to this episode here.

00:03:21
Shout out to Jannie.

00:03:22
Absolutely. And yeah, I mean, it feels like it’s been ages since we last saw each other, which was actually only in December. And yeah.

00:03:32
I think probably everyone who’s listening to this episode will probably remember the news that actually happened just two days after we left this hotel. Because there was this famous, famous fish tank and the aquarium that broke in Berlin. And this was actually the hotel we were in. So it was so sad. And I remember we were in touch about it. Because we had such a great time in this hotel, which was a fantastic hotel with the whole service.

00:03:59
It was a lovely place and we were all in awe of this lovely aquarium. And then to find out just a couple of days after we left about that horrible incident, it was very sad.

00:04:10
I remember that Lucy was reaching out to me and she said, did you see the news? And I felt like, no, this is not really happening.

00:04:17
But we had a great time and I’m glad we came there early. Yes.

00:04:22
The training went so well. And this is how I got to meet you and your colleague. We were a bunch of wonderful people. And so I got to know you a little bit. So I’m excited to get to know you here on the podcast as well. So what would you say? Who is Heleen? Yes.

00:04:39
I find it a very difficult question to answer. As many, I wear lots of different hats.

00:04:49
But this year, I think this year is big for me because I have a big birthday coming up. I’ll turn 40 later in the summer. As we mentioned, I’m Dutch. I grew up here. I have the luxury of working close to where I also have my support system, my parents and extended family. I live together with three boys, two young ones and one, shall we say, young at heart, young spirit at once. But I’ll soon celebrate almost being together with him for two decades. And I just love spending time with all of them.

00:05:26
I feel I have a big thing outside of all of the different hats I play. And that’s also making music as a singer. I love singing in my band and doing other kind of musical projects.

00:05:38
So hopefully that gives you a bit more of an image of who I am. Absolutely.

00:05:45
And I can tell you, someone who just turned 44, I can tell you that the big 40 is…

00:05:51
always a fun number. Nothing to be scared for, right? Not at all. Not at all. I mean, I’m now four years into it and it still feels good.

00:05:59
So, yeah, I hope you’re going to have a large party. I feel life gets better with each year, to be honest. It’s true. I must say it’s absolutely true.

00:06:09
So, why don’t you tell us a little bit about your professional background? Because you started actually in the hospitality industry, right?

00:06:15
I did. And a lot of assistants do that, right? It’s so interesting. I still meet a lot of people today also at IKEA who come from that industry. I think it’s such a great place to learn many different capabilities.

00:06:31
One could even say everyone would benefit from being in a kind of service-oriented type of role. I think it goes a very long way. I started working pretty young. I remember still having my 17th birthday ahead of me and starting my internship behind the front desk. And I just absolutely loved it.

00:06:53
Thinking back, I sometimes feel, wow, I was really young back then.

00:06:58
So I’m pretty brave, I guess, and courageous of myself, but also of the people that believed in me at the time and really saw me capable of that because I think it built a lot of trust for myself as well. Yeah, so it felt very natural for me to kind of learn by doing. And I spent almost a decade in the hotel and hospitality industry. mostly front of the house, you know, sales conferences and events, reservations really had a blast.

00:07:30
Yeah. But then as one of the, you know, 2008, I think it’s when the big recession kind of hit also that industry quite a lot.

00:07:38
It also coincided, you know, with personal things where I just felt it was the time to make a change. Yeah.

00:07:45
But I can only imagine how well this industry prepared you for the job you were right now, right? Yes, absolutely.

00:07:52
I still feel there’s so much that I take away or that I kind of put in the backpack from back then that really helps me today.

00:08:03
And then, of course, you know, some of the other roles that led me to where I am today. But it’s definitely a great learning school. Yeah.

00:08:12
And then you started to work for IKEA. I mean, everyone is familiar with this brand and I know everyone has at least one piece of furniture from you guys out there, probably.

00:08:21
I hope so.

00:08:23
And we’re going to find out what your favorite part is actually in this huge portfolio.

00:08:29
You were in various functions. Maybe you want to share a little bit about your journey before you started to work in the CEO office, right?

00:08:35
Yeah. Yeah. So as I said, I joined about 11 years ago and I started… I don’t think I fully realized when I entered the recruitment procedure at which level I was being recruited into because I ended up supporting the global sustainability chief and HR chief, which we call people and culture.

00:08:57
Of course, having quite big scopes to their roles at a global organization.

00:09:04
And I always thought entering at that level was such a crash course and gave such a holistic view of the company straight away, again, which benefits me today tremendously. But also supporting two leaders allowed me to have a unique seat in the business because I was also in a way sometimes the bridge in between these two staff functions and really encouraging kind of cross-functional working.

00:09:33
So that was really what I took away from that and had a lot of fun supporting two very different leaders as well. One of them actually happened to be German as well. The HR or the sustainability? The HR chief.

00:09:51
And she had been with IKEA for many years, really embodied the culture and values. And the other chief for sustainability had been in external recruitment, had started not that long before I joined his team. Lovely Brit.

00:10:06
But a very different character had also been used to having had support in his team. So I had one leader that really wanted to do everything herself, was used to doing things in a certain way. And the other person really always having had the luxury of having a support or an assistant. It was very interesting to balance those two characters.

00:10:29
And again, learned a lot.

00:10:31
And you know what is funny? I always wanted to work for a people and culture manager, but it just never happened in my career.

00:10:38
You know, there are certain fields that interest you. For example, I always said to myself, I never want to work for a CFO. I’m just not into numbers. It’s not me, you know, sitting over Excel sheets. So I really wanted to go into the culture, into also the employer branding and all the things. So any specific learnings you took out of this time?

00:11:00
Yeah, what really inspired me at that time is that we were working a lot with our equality agenda, which is very exciting for me where I had a lot of passion. So it was also in that sense a way for me to learn about, you know, the topics of equality and diversity and inclusion and be involved with projects there.

00:11:18
I actually took the other route. So I very much had an interest for the sustainability part of the business as well, as it was really in a time where it was still quite a new topic and companies were really

00:11:31
finding out what their strategies and ambitions should be. So after I went on maternity leave, we decided to kind of change the setup slightly, actually recruit my temp cover, my maternity cover. So she came on board as well. And I then devoted myself, you could say, to the sustainability staff function, which, as we mentioned, I had no background in sustainability whatsoever. So, again, learned so many things.

00:11:59
You know, got so much in-depth knowledge from being able to have that experience.

00:12:05
How did you how did you grab the knowledge? I mean, what kind of learner are you? Are you more into visual? Are you more the podcaster? Are you more into I need to have a specific book on my nightstand going on conferences? So what are the learning strategy you have?

00:12:19
Yeah, as I experienced in the hotel industry, it was very much by doing or by almost, I would say, by practicing. It was also, I listened a lot to the talks, for example, the leader I supported at that time, our chief sustainability officer would have. And at one point, I felt I could dream his speeches. You could wake me up in the night and just say, go, and I would have his narrative top of mind. And of course, with that comes, I would say, a more…

00:12:49
comfortable level with the topic and the content, and then really seizing opportunities to… I volunteered for organizing, for example, the Matrix meeting for his entire Matrix sitting out in the IKEA retail organizations and countries at the time. And

00:13:08
Of course, being the project leader, the project manager for that also exposes you to the content, right? So it’s you’re doing one thing that you know how to do well and contributing with your strengths, but then having these benefits of learning a lot of new things in the same time. And for me, that was really listening to people, asking questions to really get that information, but that also paying attention to reports that we were putting out on certain topics or white papers was really kind of my go-to.

00:13:39
Yeah. And honestly, I know that you’re into also assistant networks and how can we bring them in organization? I know that’s also one of your topics that you’re currently engaged to. And I believe that these things around sustainability, diversity, inclusion, you named it. they need to be also addressed in these assistant networks. I think we still need to be better here because I work with a lot of customers who’ve been establishing these networks. But of course, it’s all about training and it’s all about creating

00:14:12
the new way that our profession should look like. But especially when we talk about training, it needs to be included, right? Microsoft was just running a wonderful inclusion conference and I’ve been sending assistants out there and said, you need to be there. Listen to that and find out how you can support your organization. Anything you want to add to that thought? Yeah.

00:14:32
Yeah, I would say what’s always been, especially, I guess, where I’m at today, there’s a lot of business intelligence that crosses your desk as well. So also to take advantage and by reading what you can and what passes your inbox has always greatly benefited me on any topic. And then also knowing where…

00:14:53
where you naturally gravitate towards what naturally, as you said, for you, it might’ve been people in culture, maybe for me it was sustainability. For others, it might be something else. It might be the CFO area. Absolutely. But to seize those opportunities to…

00:15:07
you know, do a bit of self-learning where you can kind of on the job as it crosses your desk. I’ve always found and still do, you know, gives me a very good kind of pulse of where we’re at as a business.

00:15:18
Yes. And, you know, we need to have these sidekicks in our assistance roles, like where we feel like strongly connected to something specific, you know, running this project or being involved in this initiative. And I know sometimes it’s not easy with our busy lives. And especially when we are connected to a lot of admin org people, stuff and travels and um yeah probably exactly what you experience every single day as well uh working for a busy executive but um nowadays since we talk about is it the right time to move away from the generalist to the specialist and we had this talk in our training um to find these little sidekicks and for sure the topics we just mentioned are very very interesting and take a deeper dive into these these fields right absolutely

00:16:03
Yeah, I always felt that being a generalist really benefited me.

00:16:07
But then having something where I had… Now in my role today, for example, it’s really for me around… helping my leader manage his external network, for example. And that has been something that has been with me for many, many years, supporting other leaders. But it’s also where I dare to say today, I have developed a specialism. So both having, you know, kind of that generalist role, but then also finding kind of a sweet spot that where you also feel like you excel or it’s something that really makes you tick.

00:16:38
that kind of gives you that kind of, you know, the butterflies in the stomach or that extra energy, I think is really important. Also to keep things interesting, right? In jobs that can sometimes, you know, be somewhat repetitive or, you know, have an annual year cycle that if you do it for many, many years in a row, some of the

00:16:59
you know, some of the excitement might go out of that.

00:17:01
Yeah, fully agree, fully agree to that. And I think we continue to have this discussion in our industry about generalist or specialist and what kind of specialist, right? What kind of expert do I want to be? So it’s good to see that a lot of assistants are discovering this path for them, whatever direction it might lead them. But at the end of the day, it’s

00:17:24
Yeah, it’s our own vision. It’s our own feeling how I see my role and how I can contribute to the success of my manager, my team, and overall the organization, of course. Absolutely. I know that you are a great contributor to the success of your current leader. who is no other than the CEO of the Inka Group, which is IKEA. And it is Jesper Brodine. And I would love to get to know a little bit, of course, about how you work together. First of all, how did you end up in the CEO office? Were you headhunted or internally?

00:17:59
Or was there any specific… I should humbly say he handpicked me. I was at the time… It may be an interesting story for the community. At the time, I was with our group communications working with the public affairs team around this topic of stakeholder engagement.

00:18:20
At the same time as I had started in that role, he started his tenure as a CEO and had a different profile than the one he succeeded and was…

00:18:31
He really wanted to engage externally and have that as part of his kind of time allocation. And as he was exploring that agenda, he kept popping onto my desk for a variety of things.

00:18:46
And we then had the opportunity to work together on a couple of different occasions. And after, I don’t know, times X, he just approached me and he said, listen, this works really well. I actually miss this capability in my team today. I would love to have you as part of my team as we further develop this agenda. And again, I was able to do it from this lovely office in Leiden, close to home, and I almost immediately said yes.

00:19:16
Of course, I felt very proud also and humbled by the opportunity.

00:19:21
And I know that you have incredible people next to you in order to manage the CEO office. Maybe you want to share a little bit about the team behind Jesper.

00:19:32
I’m so curious also to how other CEO support teams set themselves up.

00:19:39
And I also feel our setup is, I would say, our setup is quite moderate maybe for his scope. So he oversees three businesses, as we said, IKEA Retail being the core business, and then there’s two other branches.

00:19:53
That roughly makes up 175,000 co-workers. And in our little team, we’re a team of three. And then, of course, we work together with many, many friends across the businesses.

00:20:05
We have, if I try to simplify, we have a strategic… A strategic assistant, who I would say is more with him on strategic topics, priorities, really driving those priorities internally within the business.

00:20:23
Then we have our business support assistant, who’s also brilliant. She’s more focused on the daily operations, on making sure that he has what he needs today and tomorrow, and his travels are booked. And we all know very, very well what falls into that scope. And as I said, then I kind of make up that little trio where there are certain decision making bodies like our board that I’m involved with, where I lead certain processes. And then I also have that big dimension of kind of assisting him, supporting him with his relationships and his stakeholder engagement there. which I do together with a colleague in group communication. So we work together hand in hand.

00:21:10
But yeah, that’s our setup. And I think we’ll talk about the assistance network in a bit because it’s been something that has recently kind of been added to my pleasure, to my delight, which is something also that we’re now trying to drive from within our team as well.

00:21:28
Absolutely. And I must say, I need to jump in into the stakeholder management because I believe it’s one of the core roles where assistants can really support their managers.

00:21:36
Absolutely.

00:21:37
Was it hard for you to get into it or would you say, no, that’s exactly how my earlier roles prepared me, actually, because I know how important a network is. I know how to engage with people coming from the hospitality industry. So was it easy for you to jump in?

00:21:52
I mean, it’s funny you make the connection back to the hotel and hospitality, because that’s exactly what I did. For me, this is so comparable to sales, but not really sales, but it still has a lot of those dimensions.

00:22:07
As we are a foundation-owned company, we have the luxury of not having to work with stockholders. So we’re not on the stock market. So that dimension had never really existed. And I’ve always felt because that component wasn’t there, it took us a while to understand the value of stakeholder engagement. Because it wasn’t something that perhaps came very natural to us as a company. So for me…

00:22:37
Raising the awareness about the value that stakeholder engagement can bring for an executive, for a leader, required a bit of an effort.

00:22:49
But of course, now that I found a sponsor who takes this very seriously and because of the place in the business he sits, I think that has really been a catalyst almost. Yes.

00:23:01
And then a great spot for me to also try and help other teams across our business to take the learnings. Because for us, we started with a blank piece of paper trying to figure out how to do this well, of course, taking inspiration from others.

00:23:15
But now I feel we’re at a spot today where there’s also a lot that we can then share internally with other leaders and their teams to further themselves. And I wholeheartedly agree that I see such a unique position for assistants and support teams to support their leaders. Because especially when you’re managing inboxes, it passes through your hands. And if you think about making… It’s all about making it more easy and more efficient for them. So if there’s… If you have an interest for this, and I think there’s lots you can take off of your leader’s plate by applying yourself there.

00:23:58
I agree. But still, assistants are fighting hard out there in order to get that seat at the table. Would you say that you have that seat at the table in order to make this role function in a way that you are satisfied as well?

00:24:11
Yeah, that’s definitely how it feels like to me.

00:24:16
I think a lot goes back to culture and values. We have very strong culture and values at IKEA.

00:24:23
I don’t feel like I have to fight for a seat at the table or to be taken seriously on this agenda. It might not always come first for people because all of us have conflicting priorities that we’re working with. But I feel over the years, as I have gathered my proof points as to why this is a benefit, not only to the leader I support, but also to the business, it kind of creates the business case itself almost. Yeah.

00:24:49
Absolutely. It’s so true. And we are part of that business case so much. We are. Sometimes we have to remind a few people about it, but in general, we’re in.

00:24:57
And ourselves. Exactly.

00:24:59
And also when it comes to imposter syndrome, like…

00:25:03
Do we have strong beliefs in ourselves? Do we have strong beliefs in order to place this idea at the management table? Because I’m sitting in that management meeting. And I remember when I was a junior assistant, of course, and I was not into my role that much, not much experience. I was not that experienced. That personality I am right back then what I am right now. But I had these thoughts in my head and I was too shy to bring it out. Right. And nowadays, of course, we encourage assistance as you do also when you talk to colleagues and when we bring new assistants on board and onboarding phases and everything. all this kind of opportunities, how we get to meet our colleagues. It’s just wonderful to see when they find their voice and when they bring their ideas out. Would you say that this was something that was natural to you or did you also learn to do that?

00:25:53
I go, it’s…

00:25:55
I have an interesting theory about this. I might be completely wrong, but I go back to my singing. So I started singing in a choir, in the church choir, actually. And I do believe I have seen headlines of a study somewhere that participating in that type of an activity, singing together with others, It’s a really important dimension in listening to others, but also making your own voice kind of count. And as that has been something that has been with me for obviously many years since then, and maybe my, you know, my being a Dutch native and being quite direct and sometimes a bit blunt has helped as well. I have…

00:26:36
And then I think upbringing might be something as well.

00:26:39
I’ve never found it particularly hard in expressing my opinions. And honestly, I feel it’s… And I’m very honest when I share my opinion. I think it’s one of my strengths. And it’s actually why I got handpicked for the job.

00:26:54
Mm-hmm.

00:26:54
Because I was very clear in my beliefs and my opinions. I will any day as well today, I will give my leader my honest opinion, my direct answer to something. And that might not always be something that might not be an agreeable, you know, it might not be that I’m agreeing with a viewpoint or an approach.

00:27:13
And then I always feel I can express that opinion. And then what the other person, you know, does with that input, it’s to them. Absolutely.

00:27:22
But no, I have to say, I mean, it’s been easy for me in that sense that it’s come quite natural. And I appreciate it might be something to really work on if it’s not something that comes natural for all. Maybe singing in a choir could help.

00:27:36
Honestly, I was just going to say this is the best tip ever.

00:27:40
So everyone join a choir.

00:27:42
Go out singing, you know, because indeed it might help you to, you know, also the way your body is moving and how you, you know, you position yourself. So actually, I think it’s a very, very good advice.

00:27:55
Yes.

00:27:56
So I’ve been stalking your LinkedIn profile. Yeah.

00:27:59
And there were quite some nice expressions in it, like spider in the web to your CEO, focusing on connecting the dots, strategic planning and coordination, as well as stakeholder management, stakeholder engagement, we talked earlier about it, and communication. So what ways of working and principles do you and your CEO have where you say, okay, this is us, this is how we operate, and there’s non-negotiables here in this direction or that direction?

00:28:25
Yeah.

00:28:27
We spoke about it in Berlin, right? Ways of working. And I thought you and Lucy had such great tips also to how to really shape that and to bring structure to that.

00:28:39
I’m a very structured person. So one of the things I really had to learn when working with my executive is going back to hotel industry, put myself in his shoes. What were his wishes? What were his needs? How did he prefer to engage with us as a team?

00:28:57
um you know we’ve come away i feel we’ve made some some tweaks along that way but today i would say we work as structured as possible but we also maintain a good level of flexibility and that all depends uh very much on what his day what his week is like and then we adapt to that um i would say some principles that we have in place is that we try to meet with him at least twice a year from a team development point of view. You know, a check-in, what’s working well, what’s not working, what should we stop, start, continue, basically.

00:29:36
um and then we try to meet him on a cycle as well when it comes to his i always call it kind of more strategic agenda planning so it’s not so much focusing on the day today but very much at kind of the big trends like this is what the year roughly is going to look like um and then um on top of that i meet him together with our comms um leader, a CEO comms leader, really connected to his more externally focused agenda. What’s coming up? What does he need? Do we need any of his decisions on things that we might want to add?

00:30:12
And then we try to have a weekly check-in, which could be as short as 15 minutes only when he’s maybe in a car or in transit. to kind of take the things that we cannot move without his input.

00:30:26
And for us today, that’s working really well. But I also remember sitting with so much frustration in the beginning where I was just in need, as Lucy and yourself also share, to have that structure, like, Monday morning call to kick off the week. And it’s just something that didn’t end up working for us, for him as a team. And the best thing I did was just embracing that and finding a way that did work. And sometimes it can take…

00:30:54
Take a bit of time to figure that out.

00:30:57
Absolutely.

00:30:58
And, you know, I mean, it’s a huge onboarding phase for both of you, right? And even if you knew each other and he handpicked you, but it’s still the new job for both of you, right? In order to come together with the other people in the team to know exactly who is responsible for which part and how do we… How do we reach our goals? Right. But one of the things that I was really fascinated with and I gave you that feedback earlier and because you’ve been raising great questions during the training and of course, sharing how you work and how the team works around the CEO role. And I was really fascinated when you said that once you started working for him, that you did this calendar audit. You analyzed how much time he spends on various topics. So why was this in your head? Why did you want to do it? And what, of course, was the outcome?

00:31:49
Was there any things you had to throw out or bring in? This was my inner geek, my inner Excel geek coming to full bloom.

00:32:01
I came really with curiosity. I was coming into that role and into that team. I was just so curious how he was spending his time.

00:32:11
Also, because I felt like I needed to understand that to identify where I might be able to contribute to what he was doing.

00:32:20
So, yes, we embarked on an audit and I basically mapped and tracked the way he was spending his time for a year. I wish I would have had a very cool automated way to do that.

00:32:35
I pretty much did it very manually through just keeping hours per week in Excel. And it took quite some efforts and investment, but it totally paid off in the end. Because as I did that, I must be honest, I might not have completed a full 12 months because after, I would say, a couple months, the trends already started to become clear.

00:33:00
And then we had hard data and we identified kind of buckets where he was spending his time. We were able to cluster them. And we then had something that we were able to present to him and say, this is how you’re spending your time. And is this how you want to be spending your time?

00:33:19
And he absolutely loved that exercise. Also because it was very concrete, right? It was built on hard data. Effects and figures. Here we go. Effects and figures.

00:33:31
And also, this is where I feel I have to make the point also where we as assistants have…

00:33:37
It’s not my quote, it’s totally somebody else’s. I don’t know who it is, but somebody referred to assistance as asset managers, managing the most valuable asset a company and a leader has, which is their time. That’s also very much what led me to this exercise.

00:33:55
Yeah, the conclusion that came from that was that we were able to have that conversation. This is working well. Yes, this is totally where I should be spending my time. Oh, is it that much time that I’m spending on this? Well, let’s bring that down for next year. And that gave us a blueprint to continue to do yearly planning on. And we still use it today. Very good. And I think it also… Besides…

00:34:21
doing, you know, being very practical and giving that hard data. It also built a lot of trust with him because he knew that we had done this exercise. We, you know, totally understood what he was trying to do. So, and I think we, we went above expectations by, by doing this type of an exercise and, and, that I think that was a nice feeling for us as a team as well.

00:34:44
It also, that conversation really helped us actually when you mentioned the non-negotiables before that really also allowed us to have that conversation with him. Like, well, what is, you know, what are the non-negotiables? What can’t we touch? And we landed on work alone time, really carving out work or time for him to, to either fill himself or to, you know, for him to really sit and, and, and work alone and,

00:35:09
You know, lock yourself away. Exactly. Lock yourself in a dark room, you know. And of course, you know, that time is very… We have a principle on it where it’s we as his team are not able to touch it. If he wants to offer it to somebody, that’s for him to decide.

00:35:29
We might come with an ask to him. But oftentimes, the answer is no. I’m not compromising that time. And I think that’s also… Very commendable to him, you know, we’re really sticking to that principle. Yes, absolutely. And that helps us a lot. But that was one of the very obvious, among the others that I mentioned, but outcomes of that work. And the fact that we now have that blueprint to work with every year is just so…

00:35:56
And honestly, it’s such a fantastic advice. And I’m glad you share this story here with all of us again, because calendar auditing is, I know, a lot of work. But once you have your data and you know exactly how can I really take the direction in order to make my executive more productive in this way or in that way. And this is where the magic happens, right? As you said, the greatest gifts come. we have for our executives is time. The moment we can allow this in the busy schedule, then you know exactly that you brought the right dots together, right? In order that you agreed, this is necessary, this is not necessary, this is productive, this is not productive. Let’s skip this one, but give room to that one. And then we have our agenda. And that’s a constant process. So I’m sure that many of our listeners are really… noting this down in order, did I ever do this properly? And maybe I should do it because it will really, really help us to increase the productivity, right?

00:36:54
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.

00:36:56
So I know, I know, yes, do it.

00:36:59
So I know that you and the team are working very hard about, you know, reaching the goals of your executive team.

00:37:06
to make your CEO successful. But I want to talk about your goals as well, because I know that you have specific goals and you are structured and you want to work on your goals. So when you look at the year 2023, and we’re jumping into March already. So what is on your bucket list for this year?

00:37:25
Yeah, we mentioned the stakeholder engagement part of my role. One of the goals I set towards that was really to become a super user in a system that we use. I’m a geek in this area. I love figuring new systems out. So it’s also I have so much fun while I’m doing that.

00:37:43
But I would say the biggie for me is the assistant network that we talked about a little bit already. And especially at… at a company like IKEA who really encourage the entrepreneurial spirit. It’s so fun to be able to kind of identify a gap that I believe is there and then to be able to run with it. So my big goal for the year is to really kind of move the needle with our assistance network. And we kind of started last year in a small group across our management, the support teams to our management team. But we’ve also established a bigger group of assistants and basically everybody in an administrative professional role across the company to bring us together to honestly also figure out together what we want this network to be and how it can benefit us.

00:38:34
And some very obvious themes like onboarding and sharing best practice, etc. already bubbled up.

00:38:46
forward.

00:38:48
But to be honest, I feel that work really required somebody to step up as a community manager. And I was very, I don’t know, that felt like such a big thing to also kind of take that on and to connect myself to that. But I had such lovely encouragement from across the community that i decided to just be brave and step up but also be very honest about i don’t have all the answers for us it’s not about me you know saying this is where we’re going it’s more about you know what do we want this to be collectively and how is each of us kind of showing up within the network to um uh to to make it valuable for all of us of course what are the roles what are the expectations how often do we come

00:39:34
together? What tools are we going to use? I mean, I can only imagine the list you have together with your team, you know, slightly starting ticking the boxes because it’s a project, a huge project itself. And of course, you know, next to the busy, busy life you have, not only within the company, because we also know that you have a pretty busy personal life. We’re going to share a little bit about it. you’ve shared the music part already, but there’s more to hear from. But I can only imagine that this is really a fun project because it will really, really help you to identify the needs from all the stakeholders being involved. Not only the assistants, but also the managers, the departments that you’re interacting with and a lot of interactions are happening every single day between assistants and the department.

00:40:26
So I always find it interesting when this all starts off and you get to know your peers in a different way, right? So it’s a great project. And of course, we wish you all the best success with it. Thank you. So maybe we should do this again in a year and let’s see.

00:40:43
Let’s do a check-in. Here we are.

00:40:45
Let’s see. There’s the network. Because I know that it’s a huge topic for many companies out there. And we have great companies with really long existing networks who started just like you, right? Yeah.

00:40:59
I’m excited to see where it leads us. You have to start somewhere. But I’d love to check in a couple months from now to see where it leads us.

00:41:08
We definitely will do that. So I must say…

00:41:14
Keeping the balance is not always easy in our busy, busy lives as an assistant, as we are so connected to so many different people. We want to help. We want to be there. And sometimes we forget to put ourselves on the priority list. So how do you manage your working and your private life? I know you’re a mom. You have your hobbies. You enjoy other things in life.

00:41:38
So how do you take care of yourself? Is there a specific method you do?

00:41:43
So my first answer here is I’m nowhere without the support system that I have around me. And that’s, of course, my partner and having our parents close by who really play a big role. I mean, that support…

00:42:02
is immediately linked to my performance at work.

00:42:06
And for me, that has been also working in an environment where I see people moving with their families for roles, which

00:42:16
can be very exciting, right? And be an amazing experience for the whole family. It was something where I felt it was too far out of my comfort zone. I just felt that being in, you know, in another country without that support system around me, I would feel I wouldn’t be able to perform in the way that I would want to. So it’s been quite a conscious decision. And I’m so thankful to them what opportunities, you know, still came to me because I remember sitting with a fear that, you know, which doors and windows am I closing with kind of, you know, having this as a prerequisite?

00:42:50
Um, no, but it’s very, it’s, it’s very important to have, have a system like that around you and that can look very differently. Right. But I think organizing yourself and the way that you kind of, you know, set that up is, is for me at least a very important prerequisite to try. And, uh, uh, I would say it’s not really maintaining the balance, but it’s, It’s like you have this anecdote about the, you know, the, I don’t know, the circus artist, right? How do you call one of these thin ropes? It’s like that person is never, ever completely in balance. It’s like they’re constantly working to keep that balance, so it maintains. something to for me to focus on almost daily and also I think just accepting that you cannot have it all and you’ll miss out on certain things either in private life or at work or in other dimensions

00:43:43
And be very real and honest about that.

00:43:48
And that can sometimes also, you know, that can come with disappointment. And just to be honest about that disappointment and, you know, not keeping up appearances. That’s also very much, I think for me, just to be honest about what my situation is. And maybe that’s sometimes it’s harder than other days. It helps me to just…

00:44:08
Keep it very real. And yeah, we mentioned the singing now a couple of times, but it really helps having something outside of my work and my family that I’m very passionate about because it helps kind of draw me out of those circles and do something completely different every now and again.

00:44:28
So having something outside of that really helps me to just let go.

00:44:33
And it’s for sure one of your little energy islands out there, right?

00:44:37
Absolutely. Yeah.

00:44:38
So what kind of music? We’re dying to hear this. And how can we listen to it?

00:44:44
So, I mean, happy to do a pitch here. The band is called Lady July. You can find us on Instagram. Yeah.

00:44:57
It’s basically four guys and a girl, and we just love playing covers of covers, I would say. So it’s songs that you’ll recognize, but they are probably performed in a slightly different way than you might recognize them immediately, which adds to the element of surprise, which we enjoy.

00:45:19
Yeah, it’s very fun. It’s very, it’s lovely.

00:45:22
I mean, I definitely would love to share this in the show notes. I mean, we need to get more Instagram followers here. Cool. So definitely, we’re going to put this in the show notes, everyone. So you get to get to get more information about the band. So what is the music you’re listening to? I mean, if I would check your Spotify playlist at the moment, what’s on?

00:45:45
So we’re now rehearsing for a gig that’s coming up, which is 80s and 90s themed. So we’re going back.

00:45:53
Love it. We’re going back in the days. Oh, gosh. They’re such brilliant gems. And how do you say guilty pleasures? You know, they kind of stem from that time.

00:46:05
You know, I love… I have such a broad taste in music. I love everything from Adele to Beyonce, but also, you know, going to a bit of Americana and country. Yeah, as long as it’s music that kind of comes from the heart by artists, you know, you can never go wrong.

00:46:25
Yeah, that is true. Yeah, that is so, so true. And, you know, music is so important in life. I mean, imagine without music, you know, you go to the car, there’s music, you go to these wonderful places that we finally get to enjoy again, you know, after the pandemic. And so we go to concerts, we meet people, we enjoy going on gigs and meeting bands. And it’s just so important for people because music, It’s not an easy life we’re in right now, what’s happening out there in our world. And music has always been connecting people, right? Yes. Through culture, through languages. And it’s just so wonderful. And by the way, what would we…

00:47:04
I mean, I would not survive with one of my favorite apps on the phone with the Shazam app, you know, when you are listening to a song somewhere and you place the app out there and then you say, oh, yeah, that’s this song, right? So I always have this with me because I use it all the time. Very smart. Because I just feel like this is a great song.

00:47:26
Maybe I heard it before, but who’s the singer? What’s the band behind one of my favorite apps? I think they renamed the business, but Shazam was always the big name out there. So, yeah, I mean, I can only wish you all the best for the year 2023, not only for the business life.

00:47:46
Thank you. Which, of course, is going to bring you into wonderful new projects, but also the private life. Because let’s be honest, that’s the most enjoyable part out there, being connected with family, having friends in your life.

00:48:01
And we talked about the sun earlier. You said, I’m ready to go to the sun. So is there any specific holiday planning that the family made already this year?

00:48:11
Totally outside of my traditional character. We did not make summer plans yet.

00:48:20
I don’t know what summer is going to bring us. We recently redecorated or also actually extended the house. So being at home is very exciting because it still feels very new.

00:48:36
So who knows? Maybe if the Dutch summer is friendly to us, we might do a staycation.

00:48:44
But I agree with you. There’s so many different fabulous spots in the world to travel to. Maybe we take a trip here or there.

00:48:52
But honestly, I mean, staying in the Netherlands for sure is a treat as well because, you know, they have great beaches out there. I mean, everyone is familiar with Zandvoort, this area, of course, which is also not too far from you. And yeah, so you have really, really great place, of course, to enjoy your staycation. But speaking of the house, here’s the last question. And I know a lot of people are curious what she is going to answer now. I mean, I think I told you in the training that I’m a big fan of the Hemnes series. Yes, you did. And now, of course, we all want to know what is your favorite part at the…

00:49:28
Ikea portfolio. My favorite product.

00:49:33
And I might have mentioned this at the training as well, did I? It’s Hullbar. I don’t know if I pronounce it correctly in Swedish, but you’ll all know it. It’s the waste sorting system. You have all these different bins, you know, depending on what waste you’re recycling. And for me, it’s organization, time sustainability, lowering your carbon footprint. It makes it easier. It makes life more efficient. It’s at a pretty affordable price. So for me, a true champion of our vision, which is creating a better everyday life for the many people. Yeah, I highly recommend to have it in your home. It makes it so easy.

00:50:11
Yes. And, you know, we all need things that help us organize. We do. Organize, right? So here’s once again the recommendation to check out the IKEA portfolio.

00:50:23
Because, yeah, I’m actually sitting here in my Airbnb and IKEA desk.

00:50:28
Lovely. You tend to mind it quite a lot, right?

00:50:31
You immediately recognize it, you know, you immediately recognize it. It’s so funny. And I think specifically also the Airbnb business itself. So every time when we go there, we do travel a lot.

00:50:43
You really feel familiar when you, oh, that’s a cup from IKEA. Oh, that’s a glass from IKEA. So I think it’s well equipped everywhere in the Airbnbs. So I thank you so much for your time to talk to us and to share a little bit about your story, about you see the role, about the work you do.

00:51:04
and how you collaborate with your executive. So all the best to the team.

00:51:10
Continued success.

00:51:12
And thank you so much for being here and for coming to the show. I appreciate that. Thanks for having me. Take care. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

00:51:22
Well, I told you this is going to be a wonderful episode and I enjoyed it myself listening again to it. So thank you so much for stopping by, Heleen. I think this is just the beginning. I can’t wait to see what’s next coming from you. I will always support you, cheering from you. And yes, thank you so much for sharing all the valuable insights with all of us.

00:51:46
You’re listening to the Leader Assistant Podcast.

Diana Brandl is a longtime C-Suite assistant, and host of the Executive Office Insights podcast. In this spotlight episode, Diana interviews Reggie Love – former Personal Aide to President Barack Obama.

The conversation features Reggie discussing his life, career, and time at the White House. He shares his background growing up in North Carolina and his path to working with Obama, emphasizing the importance of diversity and inclusion. He also offers leadership advice centered on passion, patience, and perspective (empathy), and tips for managing stress.

CONNECT WITH REGGIE

• Reggie on LinkedIn
• Reggie Love Website
• Reggie’s book – Power Forward: My Presidential Education

ABOUT REGGIE LOVE

Reggie Love is a New York Times best selling author of Power Forward: My Presidential Education, a collection of stories and lessons from his time in sports and politics. After serving as a personal aide to President Barack Obama from 2009-2011, Love earned his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and is currently a Senior Advisor at Apollo Global Management.

ABOUT EXECUTIVE OFFICE INSIGHTS with DIANA BRANDL

Executive Office Insights is a podcast for executive support professionals hosted by Diana Brandl – an accomplished trainer, consultant, coach, and former C-suite senior executive assistant with nearly two decades of experience at renowned international companies, this podcast dives deep into the evolving world of executive excellence.

Diana explores the critical themes shaping the modern workplace, including leadership dynamics, digital transformation, AI, and the future of work. Featuring insightful conversations with a diverse range of German and English-speaking experts, each episode equips listeners with actionable insights and strategies to thrive in the ever-changing executive office landscape.

–––

THE LEADER ASSISTANT ACADEMY

Enroll in the on-demand, AI-powered professional development resource for Leader Assistants who want to level up. Learn more -> The Leader Assistant Academy.

THE LEADER ASSISTANT BOOK

Download the first 3 chapters of The Leader Assistant: Four Pillars of Game-Changing Assistant for FREE here or buy it on Amazon and listen to the audiobook on Audible. Also, check out the companion study guide, The Leader Assistant Workbook, to dig deeper.

JOIN THE FREE COMMUNITY

Join the Leader Assistant Global Community for bonus content, job opportunities, and to network with other assistants who are committed to becoming leaders!

THE LEADER ASSISTANT PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP

To learn more about how you can join growth-minded Leader Assistants, check out our Leader Assistant Premium Membership for ongoing training, coaching, and community.

LEADER ASSISTANT LIVE EVENTS

Check out our constantly updated schedule of events for admins and assistants at LeaderAssistantLive.com.

SUBSCRIBE

Subscribe to The Leader Assistant Podcast so you don’t miss new episodes!

You can find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pandora, and Stitcher.

Join my email list here if you want to get an email when a new episode goes live.

LEAVE A REVIEW

If you’re enjoying the podcast, please take 2 minutes to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Each review helps me stay motivated to keep the show going!

–––

TIMESTAMPS

00:00:00 – Introduction and Show Notes
00:00:50 – Meeting Reggie Love
00:01:22 – Reggie’s Role with President Obama
00:02:14 – Reggie’s Background and Career
00:04:36 – Growing Up in North Carolina
00:08:07 – Transition from White House to Corporate World
00:13:08 – Diversity and Inclusion
00:17:00 – First Day Working for Obama
00:21:04 – Challenges and Learning on the Job
00:26:22 – Empathy and Leadership
00:32:38 – Tips for Assistants on Leadership
00:36:11 – Coping with Stress and Relaxation Techniques
00:40:01 – Basketball and Favorite Teams
00:41:26 – The iReggie Story
00:44:16 – Current Music Preferences
00:45:44 – Plans and Reflections on North Carolina
00:47:32 – Closing Remarks and Gratitude
00:48:50 – Final Thoughts and Recommendations

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Jeremy: Hey friends, thanks for tuning in to the Leader Assistant podcast. I’m excited to share another spotlight episode of my friend Diana Brandl’s show, Executive Office Insights. Be sure to check out the show notes for more information about her show and today’s featured guest. But in the meantime, enjoy this conversation and keep leading well.

Jeremy: You can find all the show notes for this episode at leaderassistant.com/371.

Diana: I’m very excited to share this interview with you. I got to know Reggie Love the first time a couple of years ago when I joined one of his talks, and I was super fascinated by his biography. And then my dear friend John Shaw introduced him to me as I was sharing my wish that I would love to do a podcast with him as well. So here we are, very thankful that Reggie gave me time out of his busy schedule to talk to me about his life, about his career. Of course, been asking quite some questions about the time he spent at the White House working as the personal aide to President Barack Obama from 2009 till 2011. He was responsible for assisting with the coordination to completion of the president’s daily schedule, as well as coordinating with other White House offices to set up long and medium range planning. But he has been working for Barack Obama already when he was a senator. So they have been a great team together for quite a while. And of course, he’s sharing some of those wonderful stories with all of us. I’m very honored to introduce the wonderful Reggie Love to you all. He’s now working as a senior advisor at Apollo Global Management. Please enjoy. Welcome everybody to the podcast, The Future Assistant, a podcast full of inspiration, encouragement, and empowerment for administrative professionals. Tune in, level up, and get motivated by the stories you are about to hear. All right, everybody. Very honored to be here today with someone who’s tuning in from D.C. Good morning, Reggie. How are you? And what time is it over there in D.C.?

Reggie: Good morning. It’s not too early. It’s only about 7.40 in the morning.

Reggie: Thanks for having me this morning, too.

Diana: Absolutely. So would you say you’re an early bird or always getting up early?

Reggie: Yeah, I think that I definitely am up early. I don’t know if it’s conditioning or if it’s like something that I don’t believe I was born that way. When I was in high school, I used to have to get up at 5.30 in the morning to be out of the house by 5.45 to beat the traffic to get to school because I went to school across town. And so if I left before six o’clock, I could get there and in 40 minutes. But if I left after six, it would take like an hour and a half. And so, it started in high school. And then when I was in college, we used to have summer workout or lifting sessions or conditioning session that would start before classes. And so like if your first class started at 730 or eight, like you usually were like in the track or in the gym by like six or seven. Um, and now it’s like, you know, uh, I, You know, it’s not as bad as not being able to sleep through the night. But, you know, I kind of wake up after five hours of sleep every day. But if I wanted to, I could go back to sleep. So that is the beauty of it.

Diana: Sounds good. I have to admit, I do have a hard time being an early bird sometimes. But yeah, it’s all about routines, right? Reggie, I’m very honored to have you on the show today. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself? Who’s Reggie?

Reggie: Yeah, I mean, I like to say that there’s a lot of narratives about me and some of them are a part of what has been written by press or by my former boss, Barack Obama. I think that some of the misconceptions are that I somehow was just like a great basketball player or somehow I was this deeply politically connected person that had worked for Obama for decades before he ever got to the US Senate. But for me, I’m just like a kid from the South. I grew up in North Carolina. You know, my parents, I like to say I won the parent lottery. My mom and dad, I’ve been together for almost 47 years. And, you know, I’ve got parents that have just really, you know, put a lot of love and prayer and effort into the development of me and my brother. You know, and I think for the, for the, for the most part, uh, I like to believe the biggest piece of it is that, you know, I just a kid that got, I got a lot out of the game of basketball. Uh, I never had the chance to, um, to really be a professional basketball player. Uh, but I feel like, you know, my, my closest friends, um, all come from, you know, either. AAU basketball, which I don’t, I’m not sure if that’s, it’s kind of like club soccer where you would see in Europe.

Diana: Exactly.

Reggie: Um, and so, uh, AAU basketball, uh, the teammates that I had in college, uh, playing at Duke and, and, and now as an adult, um, you know, some of my closest friends have, you know, are folks that I, I played basketball with on the campaign. Um, like Barack Obama and and guys that I still, you know, try to play basketball with now. Uh it’s been a little uh hard to get a good basketball game then uh because of COVID. Um but you know uh just a a kid who who grew up loving the game and uh I always joke uh that I never got a chance to um play professionally, but I got so much out of the game because, you know, here in the United States, you know, school’s really expensive, right? So, I mean, we pay like roughly, you know, if you go to like a non-state sponsored school, you know, you’ll pay about 50 to 60,000 bucks a year for a four-year degree. And so, you know, I got into a really good school, I got it paid for, and I got to, you know, build you know, a relationship with the leader of the free world through, mostly through the game of basketball. So, you know, that’s kind of me in a nutshell. I’m at a network for Apollo Global Management, which is a large private equity shop out of New York that’s focused on sort of traditional private equity and credit in the alternative investment space. I’m a senior advisor there now. And yeah, and I think, and I’ve been there for about two years and have been focused on a lot of the issues around human capital, diversity, equity, inclusion, and government affairs.

Diana: So how was the transition actually coming from the Obama administration going back into the corporate world? Was it hard for you or was it just a nice change? Did you enjoy it?

Reggie: The irony for me is that, one, I had not really worked in the corporate world before leaving the White House in 2012. I came to D.C. right when I got out of college, and I think I had in my mind that I was going to go work for a bank. But when I was In the period in time in which I was waiting for the job to start and the training program to start, I was actually thinking about going to Goldman Sachs. I found myself in Washington, D.C. at the suggestion of my mother, who had said, why don’t you get an internship or do something productive with your time? Until the job starts, I had just left Dallas, where I’d been playing outside linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys. And so my mom kind of felt like, you know, I was too young to be retired and too young to be playing golf every day in North Carolina. And so I went to D.C. A friend of mine, Sean Richardson, was the chief of staff for then for Patrick Kennedy, who was the junior. I was a senior congressman from from Rhode Island. And He knew Mindy Myers, who lived in the basement of Pete Rouse. And Pete was the chief of staff for Barack Obama at the time. But, you know, Pete was sort of a statesman of the U.S. Senate. He was kind of known as the 101st senator. He had been the chief of staff to Tom Daschle when Tom Daschle was the majority leader in the Senate. And when I came to D.C. to interview for, you know, a staff position, a staff assistant position, you know, I kind of fell in love with, with DC and, and, you know, one of the things I kind of really recognized in DC at that time was that, you know, you know, Barack Obama was the only African American senator, so one of 100. So, he represented 1% of the US Senate as a person of color. And as you looked at the staffs of these members, they looked very much like the member. And so you had really you had a dearth, a lack of diversity on the staff level. And my general assumption was, you know, how do you have a political system that works for all people if the people that, you know, are in representative government don’t, you know, look like the people that they represent or trying to represent it? And so and really, that was like one of the the factors that kind of drove me to wanting to, to spend the time that I’ve spent in Washington DC because, you know, When policies don’t work, they often have a multiplier effect on those people who have less access to capital, right? And so if I live in a neighborhood where, you know, my school’s a little run down and my budget for that school was a little skewed because the property taxes are lower or, you know, they haven’t gotten around to updating the school. If I have access to capital, I can easily put my kid in a car, send them across town to an independent school or a private school or some parochial school. Whereas if I don’t have access to capital, I’m stuck with whatever mobility options are in front of me. And so if someone doesn’t have that perspective or recognize it, and I don’t know if this is a thing in Germany, but here in the US, you’ve got these massive disparity gaps between wealth and between income as you sort of segment the population between white, black, Hispanic, Asian, and African-Americans. You know, historically have sort of have skewed toward the lower or towards the higher gap and sort of the lowest. income levels and the lowest wealth level. So I think that that was one of the things I noticed at an early age. And I laugh about it all the time. And no one’s really going to understand this phrase. But when I grew up in Charlotte, and I just mentioned my parents, and I’ve got two phenomenal parents, but my parents never really made a bunch of money. They kind of were You know, they made like they were, you know, middle income kind of families. My dad worked for the government. He worked for the Office of Social Security, which is sort of like a, you know, like a benefits office. And so they were responsible for paying uh, out, uh, payments to individuals who had either disabilities or who had retired and had sort of paid into the social security program for years and sort of now retire, um, eligible for these benefits. And so my dad and mom, um, you know, they, I grew up feeling like we were wealthy and, and I mentioned that school that I used to drive across town to go to, which was an independent school called Providence day. a great high school, but at that point in time, cost more than what my family could really afford. I think now it costs about $26,000 a year for high school. And I was lucky enough to go to the school. Now, we did not pay full tuition. The biggest tax was probably having to get there. But the thing that I realized was that, you know, there, there was so much more opportunity and so much more. Well, on the other side of town and, you know, and I told my friends I was like, I didn’t realize that. that I didn’t have much until I got to Providence Day. And it’s funny because I had said to myself, you know, how do so many people have so much stuff and none of them play for the Hornets? And the Hornets were the professional team in town at the time. Because I kind of grew up thinking like, you know, you only really got to be wealthy if you were, you know, an entertainer or an actor or an athlete or whatever. sort of the community that I grew up in. So, yeah.

Diana: Such great information you’re sharing with us already, Reggie. Thankful for that, giving some insights how you grew up and what was important for you back then. And I’m glad you’re bringing already the topic about diversity and inclusion because this is the number one topic that needs to be on the agenda everywhere. And I’m glad to see that a lot of assistants are out there pushing this topic, bringing it on the agenda when they talk to their executives, when they talk to their HR people, what impact they might have in an organization. Because it’s a topic that needs to be addressed from all levels in an organization, not only from the management, but from all levels. So I’m glad to see that when I speak to assistants, not only in the big corporates, but everywhere out there, who say, this is really important for me, and I really want to have a voice when it comes to diversity and inclusion. So thank you so much for bringing this topic already, because it’s so relevant. Looking back at the time with the Obama administration, you held various functions and one of them was the personal assistant to the former president. So do you remember how the first day was when you actually started working for him? How was it like? Any nervousness in you or was it just like, hey, that’s my job and I’m going to be good at this? And it’s just an executive for me, right? It’s just how I see it, maybe. How was it? Do you remember the feeling back then?

Reggie: Yeah, I mean, look, I’d say there were kind of really sort of three phases for me in which I sort of went into sort of a new version of a role. And all of those roles were, in theory, working for then either Senator Obama or President Obama. And when he was a junior senator from Illinois, I remember the day that I started there. My friends give me a hard time because I think the night before, I laid out the suit that I was going to wear, and I had ironed the shirt, and I had shined my little Cole Haan shoes. And I remember that day vividly because it was such an eye-opening experience. And I got the chance to meet so many different people on the Obama team. And the thing that I had recognized is that he had brought together such a diverse and talented group of people to work for him when he was a junior senator from the state of Illinois. And then I remember the day in which, you know, the campaign began and I was his special assistant or body guy or whatever people refer to it as and, you know, and, and for the most part. You know, it was extremely stressful, not because of the task of the job, but really the uncertainty. You know, there’s no manual, there’s no, you know, script to follow. You know, you really are just sort of reading and reacting in terms of what is working and what is not working. And I think that sometimes it’s hard because you know, you’ll do things that don’t work, right? And not to any fault to yourself, but you know, you don’t have all the information, you don’t have all the the context to be able to make decisions that in theory are always valuable to the candidate or to then Senator Obama, because you’re young or I was young and I did not know a whole hell of a lot. And I think that that was a little bit terrifying. mainly because in life we all spend time like training, preparing, you know, especially like in sports or in school where you’ve gone through this organization or this team or this class and you now are like the king of the hill and you’ve mastered it, right? And to then be thrown into a place where you’re now no longer at the top of the hill you actually have very little relevant context or information because you have not had those experiences, those specific experiences to give it to you. And so I think that that is a challenging place to be in, but it’s humbling. And I think if you have an open mind and an open heart and If you are willing to be vulnerable. I think you’re able to really grow in those roles in an effective manner. I think a lot of that comes from the concept of like you know, uh, eating a piece of humble pie and saying, Hey, sir, you know, look, I know that you just explained this to me, but I have no idea what you were talking about right now. Could you just give me a little bit more context? Um, and, and I think that that is often a hard thing to do, but I think especially as a man in the United States, uh, to kind of, um, to come back and to say, you know, Hey, look, I don’t have the answer right now, but I’m gonna, I will go down and I’ll track it down for you. And that actually was what a lot of the job was for the first few weeks was what was, let me get back to you on that. I’m going to have to go do some research.

Diana: Yes, absolutely. Speaking of like having a routine and this job is almost impossible, I believe, right? Like, okay, kind of planning the day, but then they’re going to be a lot of things mixed up, right?

Reggie: Yeah. And I remember when when Obama was first, the first couple of days in the White House, President Obama and I, he would ask me these questions about stuff. And one day there was this big envelope on my chair and outside of the Oval Office and it was 50 pages and it was a bill for like $30,000. And I was like, And I’m like, going through the bill and I’m like, I’m so confused as to what it is. And so I just, I pick up the phone and the guy who had the job, who had my job for President Bush, ironically went to Duke, a guy by the name of Jared Weinstein is a great young man. He’s a couple of years older than I was. And at that point in time, he was at Stanford Business School. And I called him and I said, hey, the admiral just dropped off this bill here. And he said, well, how much is it? I said, it’s like $30,000. And he goes, yeah, that’s about what it was for the Bushes when they were at the White House every month. And I was like, oh, that’s helpful.

Diana: Oh, that’s so funny indeed. But I’m glad you had a good network, right? To reach out and ask for like, okay, what’s this here? So I must say, I’m really enjoying the book Barack Obama wrote. And I saw your name in there quite a few times, along with some pictures, playing basketball, being on the road, of course. And in the book, I read that he calls you his little brother. So what did you actually enjoy the most while working for him? And where did this name come from?

Reggie: Yeah. So not to plug the book, but I did. I listened to the book on audio. I thought it was well read, enjoyed every minute of it and definitely was like a trip down memory lane on some really some some great quote unquote adventures. I think like I think when you spend so much time with someone, two straight years on a presidential campaign, three years in the White House, it’s almost like Stockholm syndrome. And once you start to identify with your capture. And I’d say for me, look, I’d say the job of working for Barack Obama as a special assistant and personal aide, I think was, a couple of things. It did not require, um, you know, a PhD in neuroscience. Right. Um, but it, it did require, you know, a lot of patients, a lot of empathy, uh, and, and the ability to, to, to pick up information and involve and to, um, into learning grow. And I think for me at that point in time in my life, I think it was a, a very important, um, uh, growth experience for me. Um, you know, I think that, you know, I, I very much, uh, did not have the ability to, uh, to be empathetic. I don’t think I was very good at, um, really, um, taking in specific moments. You know, I think when you’re young, you’re always thinking about next play, next play. I think I learned the ability to, you know, to really to pause, take a beat, self-assess, reassess, really think about what is happening at that point in time and less from an emotional point of view and more from a realistic point of view. And then I think I think the biggest piece is that in this evolution, I got to see the country and the world. And I’d say that was really important for me, especially in this point in time in which we feel like the world is so split and so bipartisan right now. And so I mentioned that because you know, what you find as you look across this country and the world is that everyone kind of cares about the same thing, right? Like they want to have an opportunity to work and make an affordable wage. You know, they want to be able to put food on the table. They want to be able to have healthcare. They may want to be able to take a vacation, you know, and retire with dignity. And, you know, and it didn’t really matter, like, the country, the language, the color of the state, you found those things to be pretty true everywhere around the world. And I think those things, like, give me a lot of hope when I think about how divided we kind of express the world to be today. And I don’t believe that those divisions are as big as they are. But I do think, you know, as we talked about earlier on the show, I do think a lot of these challenges are driven by, you know, income inequality and access. And so and and we as a country and we as leaders need to think about, you know, how to make sure that people have enough to be hopeful and to believe that, you know, the German experiment, the American experiment, the EU experiment, you know, is something that’s worth buying into. And that is something that, you know, if abided by, will create, you know, opportunity for individuals and for their families and their communities. And so I do think that that was the biggest thing that I learned. on the process. And then I think what I learned specifically from him was empathy and always being able to think about, you know, not only from a campaigning, fundraising, policy point of view. But just in terms of as we think about the conversations that we’re in in our day-to-day grind, where is someone else coming from? And how is the world impacting them? And why is it not necessarily trying to validate why people feel the way they may feel, but trying to understand the root causes that have created those feelings. And so I tell the story, you know, I remember when, and I’m not sure if the listeners on this podcast are old enough to remember, but the last crash in 2008, and eight and nine, right when Barack Obama had won the 2008 election, we’d come in and we had the housing crisis, we had the automobile crisis. And while campaigning for president, he was having a bunch of calls with President Bush And they were trying to pass what was now known as TARP, which is the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which was a federal stimulus package to help save the baking industry. And I had said to him, because, you know, we’re, you know, I remember we were in San Francisco, we were just driving across the Bay Bridge. And, you know, this is a third call he’s had with President Bush that day. And, you know, what was a true bipartisan effort during the middle of a presidential campaign with the Republican president to try to come up with bipartisan support for this bill? And I had said to him, you know, look, sir, I’m confused because, you know, if you were president, Um, I don’t believe the Republicans would work, uh, this hard, uh, to try to get something passed. Um, and especially before the election, you know, like in theory, like if nothing gets passed, wouldn’t it be really good for you and this campaign, which you’ve been campaigning for, for the last 20 months, uh, for us, for there not to be a TARP. And he said, you know, Reggie, like, I think it’s a great question. You know, I understand why you think such a thing. And I don’t believe that your your inclination are wrong. But I think what you have not really taken into consideration is who are all the people that would be impacted if TARP does not pass. You know, it may as a whole hurt my chance to become president. of the United States, but it’ll be a hell of a lot painful for all those other individuals who lose access to banking services, payroll services, if we go and spiral into a great depression. And those people who will be most impacted by it will have not been the individuals who were the root cause. And so if that in itself changes the odds of me becoming president.

Reggie: He’s it was like it’s more than worth it. Worth it. And and I don’t think that. many people have the ability to be that empathetic when it comes to other people. And to see it at that level kind of sort of lets, always reminds me that, you know, as tough as I may have it, there’s always someone who may have it a little bit tougher. And so we can never not be empathetic because true impact is what happens to the entire community, not just what happens within your own tribe or your own household.

Diana: Right. And it’s such a wonderful story. And I always say, for me, great leaders, they show empathy. They show emotional intelligence in many ways. It’s not only the technical skills that they bring to the table, but so many other important values are connected to empathy, of course. And you just gave a wonderful example And actually, speaking about leadership, in your speaking engagements, you talk about leadership. And this is a topic that, of course, is relevant for many assistants as well. So when you think of high pressure, tight deadlines, multiple executives, and so much more, the gatekeeper position is not always an easy one, for sure. So what would you say? What are your top tips out there for our audience?

Reggie: Yeah, look, I’d say, you know, not to be corny. I usually I usually talk about passion and patience and perspective and perspective really kind of feels like empathy. And but I think why passion and patience are important, you know, I think and I learned this probably in college. Right. you know, everyone wants to win a national championship. And we were lucky enough my freshman year to, to win a championship. And, and the thing that you often find out is that like, you don’t win the NCAA tournament is played in, in, uh, in March every year, this thing called March madness is a big American to do. And, uh, but in actuality, even though those games are played in March, um, the preparation and the training to be prepared to win those games they happen, you know, a year before that the summer before. And so, and so why I say patience is, you know, oftentimes you’re gonna have to do a lot of work that will not bear immediate fruit or not give sort of immediate gratification but ultimately will be helpful over time. And so you kind of have to be patient about how you do the work. And, you know, you know, what do they say? Work as hard as you would when no one’s watching as if someone were watching. And and and don’t let the immediate things that are sort of don’t let the lack of immediate gratification have an impact on how much effort you put into the work that you do. Yeah. And I think that takes a lot of patience to be able to execute on that. And then I say passion. No, I think that like, you have to sort of believe in the organization and the people that you work for, and that they want to, you know, do something that’s really aligned to the things that you care about. Because, you know, work is hard. And if you don’t have that passion, if you don’t, if you’re not, if you don’t believe the thing that you’re doing, or the widgets, or the cogs, or the policy, or the message that’s being created. I think it can be challenging to get through those valleys. And so I think you’ve got to be excited and really believe that even if the work that you are doing is small, impact of the team and of the organization is worthwhile. That finding the New York Times while you’re traveling through Keene, New Hampshire at 6am in the morning will have an impact on you know, who is the leader of the free world and, you know, whether or not there’s health care. Hard to see those things being correlated, but, you know, I think you got to make those correlations and be excited about those things.

Diana: Yeah, I love that. Absolutely. Fully agree with you and have a passion for what you do. And a lot of assistants do have passion for their roles. And the past year for sure was not an easy one. We are still in the pandemic. And not only assistants were affected, but many assistants were affected. And they do have a hard time, you know, coping with the stress, coping all of a sudden working from home in the remote workplace. So when we talk about pressure and the things that come with a pandemic, of course, how do you think, maybe some of the, well, I would say examples you want to share with us, maybe from your past job, when you cope with stress, traveling a lot, being, you know, availability 24-7 in such a role probably. So any ideas what you want to share with our audience in terms of how did you relax playing basketball for sure I’m sure but any other tips you want to give out where you say this helped me a lot maybe going into reflection mode. meditation, whatever is out there. Because for me, I do meditate. It helps me, especially going through a tough week. I always start meditating in the morning, just to prepare myself to start the day. And I also reflect after I finish the day in order to be grateful for another day with all the highlights and the lowlights. So what did I do in order to relax?

Reggie: Yeah, you know, I think the The biggest thing for me, um, was, uh, sleep. Like how do you turn off to be able to sleep? And what I found was that, um, I would carry a, a spiral, uh, notebook, the size of an index index cards on a spiral notebook. And I would carry it in my pocket. Uh, and I would write down, you know, anything that was on my to-do list or anything that I needed to remember. Uh, and, and what I think that allowed me to do is that, um, you know, when I went to sleep at night, if I ever had like, uh, uh, oh my God, did I remember to do this or this thought that was really important, I would. I would keep my index card on the table next to me and a pen. I would just write it down. And I would like trust in that the spiral notebook had all the information and that I was not going to solve for any of those things while I was sleeping. And so I think just being able to get a night of rest and let my mind be at ease and not try to feel like I’m holding everything, you know, and I also think that that’s like kind of like, what do you call it, how you how you avoid key man risk. How do you have systems that are easily shareable and easily transferable so that if for some reason you’re out or sick or you decide you want to leave or you need to go to business school or whatever, you have effective ways to transfer out of the role so that you don’t feel as though everything is always your responsibility.

Diana: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and I fully agree to that because I do the same. I always have something next to me and I try to pencil everything down so it’s out of my head and I can relax and I know I can take care of that tomorrow. So, very helpful tips. So, of course, basketball, for sure, is also helpful. That’s the best medicine, I would say.

Reggie: Well, basketball is only good if you play well. If you play basketball and you play poorly, and then the president is trash-talking you for the next seven days, it’s not always helpful.

Diana: Yeah, well, I must say, because you mentioned the Hornets earlier, I’ve seen the Hornets play against the Lakers one time, which was amazing to see. So what’s your favorite team? Which team are you rooting for at the moment?

Reggie: Well, here in the U.S., we have the NBA playoffs are going on. I, you know, obviously I was a huge Dirk Nowitzki fan.

Diana: I was hoping you’d say that.

Reggie: Germans. It was a bummer to see them get knocked out against the Clippers two nights ago. But the One of the co-founders for Apollo owns the 76ers, Josh Harris. So I’m rooting for the 76ers. They got a couple of Duke guys on the team. Steph Curry, who’s Steph Curry’s younger brother.

Reggie: And then Elton Brand, who also was an ACC player of the year, went to Duke and played in the NBA for 12 years. He’s a general manager for the Sixers. So I’m rooting for Embiid and Ben Simmons to beat the Atlanta Hawks in this series.

Diana: I mean, we’ll see what happens, I would say, huh? But I must say, I’ve also enjoyed watching Dirk a lot. I remember being in Dallas in the American Airlines Arena. And it was just phenomenal to see the crowd, you know, rooting for this German guy. And what a career, what an amazing career. So we’re all very proud of this guy. So Reggie, we’re coming to the last question. And how can I not ask about the iReggie? So the story has been told so many times by your former boss, it’s everywhere. So he enjoyed the music, you put him on the iPod, right? So what was your special trick? And I’m even more curious to find out what’s on your special music list at the moment. So what are you listening to?

Reggie: Um, well, uh, well, I think the, the story really, uh, came about when during the campaign, he had met with Jay-Z and, and Beyonce and he had not, he, after the meeting, he realized he was like, you know, I don’t actually don’t know what Jay-Z’s top songs are. Could you put five on to my iPad? I’d like to just sort of check them out, you know, for me. And I was like five, I was like, how can I only pick five?

They’re all good, right?

Reggie: There’s so many great songs.

Reggie: And so, uh, I had put the, I’d put on, um, um, five songs and he kind of said, Oh, these are good. I should have a couple more. And that came, that became this whole exercise of, you know, uh, him, um, sort of being kept up to speed with pop culture through, uh, some of my, uh, music, uh, taste and, And then when, um, you know, the iPad came out, someone asked like, uh, him, you know, are you going to get the iPad? And he said, well, why would he get an iPad? I have, I got an iReggie because at that point in time, you know, I always kind of had the internet on my, you know, on my Blackberry, on my sidekick, I grabbed the papers, you know, the magazines, the iPod, the, you know, And then when I left to go to finish up my MBA at Penn, he got an iPad. And I think the moral of the story is that the iPad was quite more effective and cost efficient than I ever was. But I think that he enjoyed hearing about my escapades more than the activities that the iPad got into after the workday.

Diana: That’s amazing. So what’s on your list at the moment, Reggie? What are you listening to?

Reggie: Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, I have, you know, I’ve been on a kick. I’ve been listening to a lot of NPR. Good choice. But I’ve also been listening to just some global artists. I love some of the Spanish artists. And some of this K-pop, the song Lo Siento, which is a little bit older, with like the Super Juniors. You know, it’s just like a lot of crazy stuff, man. Some gospel music. I’m trying to think, what’s my favorite? I love The Baby. He’s from North Carolina.

Diana: Oh, yeah. A local supporter, of course. Good.

Reggie: And then you’ve got, and obviously, um, you know, uh, Adele, like, I don’t know if she’s has anything, she has something that came out last year or something, but I’m like, you know, she can’t make a bad song.

Diana: Absolutely. Even the older ones are great. I agree. That’s fantastic. And speaking of North Carolina, any plans going down there anytime soon? Yeah.

Reggie: Yeah. Well, you know, coach K is retiring and I don’t know if you saw the news last week. It was, you know, a big to do. So, uh, we’ll definitely spend a bunch of time down in North Carolina, uh, uh, enjoying his last season. And then, you know, my hope is that I’ll be back there living there and the next year or so as well. Uh, you know, it’s a little cheaper. Oh, yes, it is a little warmer. Have you spent much time in the Carolinas?

Diana: Yes, I’ve been living in Virginia, actually, because that’s that’s a funny story. I mean, I’m very familiar with the D.C. area because I used to live on the Virginia side, Fairfax area. And when I was an au pair in 1998, 1999, it feels like ages ago and feels like, oh, my God, I got old. But this was my first encounter with the U.S. After I finished high school here and got my degrees, I wanted to see the world, and I decided to become an au pair to stay with a family in the D.C. metro area that both worked for the CIA. And it was quite interesting to be there for the kids.

Reggie: probably made for a very interesting dinner conversation.

Diana: Oh, I can tell you that. I can tell you that. I’ve been over in Langley also, and so quite interesting. But ever since then, I kept in touch with them, and they are actually moved from Virginia to North Carolina to the Raleigh-Durham area, which is very lovely. That’s great. I’ve been traveling throughout the East Coast and I hope I’m going to be back to the U.S. soon. So it’s, as I always say, my second home after living there for a full year. Yeah.

Reggie: Nice. Well, my parents live in Raleigh, Durham. So if you’re ever there, you got a place to crash.

Diana: Oh, that’s amazing. Definitely going to do this. Absolutely. So Reggie, it’s a huge honor for me to have you on the show. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, for our listeners. There was a lot of valuable insights here. Thank you so much for guiding us through your wonderful career with all the insights you shared with us. Wishing you all the best, stay safe, stay happy and wishing you best of luck for all the things that are on your agenda for the rest of the year and whatever comes after this year, right?

Reggie: Yeah, well, we’ll see what the new normal is. Hopefully we’ll all reemerge from our from our kitchen tables and work from home setups. And thank you for having me on today. And it’s been a lot of fun. And hopefully, your listeners enjoy and can’t wait for my for my next trip to to Deutschland.

Diana: Yes, definitely. And luckily, we’re opening up here. So hopefully, everything will be back to normal soon. But I definitely would love to welcome you here. And yeah, thank you so much, Reggie, once again. And stay blessed. Thanks.

Reggie: Thanks for doing the same. Bye.

Diana: Thank you so much for the inspiration, Reggie, for sharing your story with my audience. It has been super, super interesting for me to listen to you. I’ve been hearing you speak before, but there’s always so much more and new you are sharing with your audiences. So lots of takeaways for me as well. So I’ll put all the relevant information into the show notes, everyone. Make sure you reach out to Reggie on LinkedIn. connect with him and also grab a copy of his book, the Power Forward book. Highly recommend it. I just recently read it again during my vacation. So definitely should be on your book list.

Jana Franklin is President of CEO Concierge, a company dedicated to offering high-quality virtual assistant services to busy entrepreneurs, business owners and C-suite levels.

In this episode of The Leader Assistant Podcast, Jana talks about the importance of training and onboarding when bringing on an assistant, the role of personality assessments in the hiring process, treating assistants as business partners, and more.

CONNECT WITH JANA

• • Jana on LinkedIn
  • CEO Concierge

ABOUT JANA

As the owner of Jimmy John’s Franchise and Fantastic Sams, Jana Franklin has always been passionate about entrepreneurship and providing top-notch service in every business endeavor.

In May 2023, she embarked on a new journey and launched CEO Concierge Virtual Assistant, a
company dedicated to offering high-quality virtual assistant services to busy entrepreneurs, business owners and C-suite levels. CEO Concierge focus is on helping their clients streamline their operations, manage their tasks efficiently, and ultimately achieve their goals with greater ease.

At CEO Concierge Virtual Assistant, they provide a wide range of services, including administrative support, scheduling, email management, social media assistance, and much more. CEO Concierge’s goal is to give their clients the freedom to focus on what they do best while they handle the rest.

–––

THE LEADER ASSISTANT ACADEMY

Enroll in the on-demand, AI-powered professional development resource for Leader Assistants who want to level up. Learn more -> The Leader Assistant Academy.

THE LEADER ASSISTANT BOOK

Download the first 3 chapters of The Leader Assistant: Four Pillars of Game-Changing Assistant for FREE here or buy it on Amazon and listen to the audiobook on Audible. Also, check out the companion study guide, The Leader Assistant Workbook, to dig deeper.

JOIN THE FREE COMMUNITY

Join the Leader Assistant Global Community for bonus content, job opportunities, and to network with other assistants who are committed to becoming leaders!

THE LEADER ASSISTANT PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP

To learn more about how you can join growth-minded Leader Assistants, check out our Leader Assistant Premium Membership for ongoing training, coaching, and community.

LEADER ASSISTANT LIVE EVENTS

Check out our constantly updated schedule of events for admins and assistants at LeaderAssistantLive.com.

SUBSCRIBE

Subscribe to The Leader Assistant Podcast so you don’t miss new episodes!

You can find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pandora, and Stitcher.

Join my email list here if you want to get an email when a new episode goes live.

LEAVE A REVIEW

If you’re enjoying the podcast, please take 2 minutes to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Each review helps me stay motivated to keep the show going!

–––

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Jeremy: 00:21
Hey friends, welcome to The Leader Assistant Podcast. It’s your host, Jeremy Burrows, and this is episode 370. You can check out the show notes for this conversation at leaderassistant.com/370. Today I am excited to be speaking with Jana Franklin. Jana is the owner and president. CEO concierge is the business, is that right?

Jana: 00:54
CEO concierge, yes.

Jeremy: 00:56
CEO concierge, yep. And the uh it’s CEO concierge virtual assistant. It provides a wide range of services, including administrative support, scheduling, email management, social media assistance, etc. So we’ll hear a little bit more about that in a bit. But first, uh Jana, you are in the same state that I am in. Is that correct?

Jana: 01:20
Yeah. Yay! We’re in the show-me state, right? Let’s show well, we can’t show them today, but we’ll tell them, right?

Jeremy: 01:27
Exactly. Yeah. So Missouri, you’re in St. Louis, Missouri. I’m in Kansas City, Missouri. We’re probably about door to door. We’re probably about three hours and 30 minutes, depending on how fast uh you drive across uh Interstate 70.

Jana: 01:40
Oh, you can’t drive fast across Interstate 70 anymore, can you?

Jeremy: 01:44
Right, right. Um, so yeah, excited to have you on. Tell us uh what you love to do when you’re not working.

Jana: 01:53
Well, when it’s warm out, I like to be in my yard, uh, working in the garden, just sitting out enjoying this weather. Um I like to play mahjong um with my girlfriends. Um played that for quite a while. I know it’s becoming the older age of getting that right now, but I love mahjong. And then I have a freshman in college and a freshman in high school. So they keep me busy. My freshman in high school plays tennis and runs cross country. So um like to, you know, go support him. And then I’ve been married for 27 years. So yeah, uh lots of family and friend time if I can.

Jeremy: 02:36
Nice. So you have to tell me a little bit as a side note: is it mahang? Is that how you say it?

Jana: 02:42
Yeah, yeah.

Jeremy: 02:43
So I I noticed that I think my executive’s family is getting into it a little bit. I have no idea. I haven’t seen nobody I know is getting into it. I just saw something. I was like, what is this this game or something? So what is it? What’s like the TLDR there?

Jana: 02:59
Yeah, so it’s a Chinese tile game. Um, and it’s really supported. Um, it’s supported out of New York uh for the States. Uh, we they do a card, it’s the playing card. It is tiles. Um, I should know more about this. My mother could tell you all the rules and everything, but my mom taught me, she has taught a ton of people. She has taught me and my girlfriends here in St. Louis. So we we try and meet at least once a month to play. And it it it you can bet, we don’t bet in my group, but um, and it’s like quarters and nickels, right? And it’s almost it’s comparable. I hate like if you know pitch or euchre or you you it it’s there’s there are suits, but the suits are bams, cracks, and um oh my gosh, I just forgot the other one, bams, cracks, and uh dots. And and you you try and win your hand, right? And so, but it’s very um it’s addictive. You can play it online. Um, you have to pay for it online, but it’s addictive. And it’s I’m very competitive. Uh, but I love to see, I just I love to see people win Majon hands. You can, you can um, you know, it’s called if you if you don’t, if no one wins, it’s called the wall, you hit the wall. I mean, so it’s um it’s a four-person game, really, but you can play with three, you can play with five. Um, it’s really hard to play with less than three. Um, but it’s good. I have noticed people that are really good at math can catch on a lot faster than people who aren’t. Um, I think they see the board better. I don’t know why.

Jeremy: 04:44
But yeah, so you’re saying I would probably not be good at it because I’m not good at math.

Jana: 04:48
No, I mean I’m not good at math. I mean, I’m good at math, but I’m not good at math. It’s not my strong suit, right? So um I struggle at it sometimes. Whereas I have friends that can see the numbers and the boards faster. I don’t know.

Jeremy: 04:60
Nice.

Jana: 05:00
I don’t I don’t know. Cool.

Jeremy: 05:02
I’ll definitely definitely have I’m sure I’ll learn more about that soon if it’s if it’s uh getting popular too.

Jana: 05:08
So yes, yes.

Jeremy: 05:09
Um awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about your career, and uh then we’ll kind of get into you know what you’re doing now and and how we can we can talk about mistakes that CEOs make when hiring a virtual assistant, and then also um why every executive assistant should be treated like a business partner. So tell us about your your career journey and how you uh what what what your experience is and then how you ended up where you’re at today.

Jana: 05:36
I preface it with saying, learn from my costly mistakes. You know, learn like learn from me my costly mistakes so you don’t have to stick go through the costly issues. So I actually um my degree is in fashion merchandising. I am a former uh corporate uh handbag um buyer for small other goods for what was used to be May Department stores, which was Famous Bar, Lord and Taylor, um Hex, there were seven chains. Uh they were based in St. Louis, Missouri. And I severed out when Federated, Macy’s bought May Company in 2006, which was perfect. My my husband and I at the time were opening, getting ready to open our third Fantastic Sam’s franchise hair salon. And it was perfect because I was we were at the point where we thought we might want to start a family, like things were just changing in our lives. And so we so I so we opened another franchise, Fantastic Sam’s. We opened a total of five within five years, and then I had our first our first child. And then in 2010, a friend of my husband’s was talking to him about Jimmy John’s franchises, which was based in Champaign, Illinois at the time, and how much money these Jimmy Johns made, and this is so great, and so forth. So we went over to Champaign and we drank the Kool-Aid and we bought into the franchise in 2010. We opened our first store in 2011 when I was seven and a half months pregnant with our seconds, and proceeded to open a total of six within the next five years and about died. A lot of growth. Um just, you know, like I said, learn from my expensive mistakes. Um and then in 2017, really came to a uh uh mental, emotional, everything halt. Uh told my husband he needed to come in and run the companies and I needed to take a break. And so did, and then I came back in right before COVID, big mistake. And it and then uh realized at that point, like I am not good at everything, even though I want to be, you know, I want um, I’m not good at everything, nor do I want to be good at everything. And I want to spend my time where I like to be. And so COVID hit about the same time. And and that’s when I realized, okay, I need to be in my stores. And everything else that I was doing that I wasn’t really good at, I needed to bring in someone to help me. And so that’s when I brought in a virtual assistant to really work on the things that I was not good at. And that way I was allowed to be in to in the stores where I actually did better, right? My business grew during COVID. It did, you know, I a lot of people can’t say that. Now, I say that Jimmy Johns grew during COVID. The hair salons got shut down because they were not considered essential. And so I had two big dichotomies going on where one was like, you know, going gangbusters, and the other one was like, my people were unemployed. So it was just a very emotional, but at the same time, that’s when we brought in the virtual assistants as well and to help me and the Jimmy Johns companies. And so it just it just really has transpired. Um I have really realized, and I also turned 50 in there. So I think I also was like, I don’t spend time anymore doing things that I’m not good at, nor do not benefit my company, myself, my family, my friends. Like it, I have to be being productive as a person of society. And so that for me is kind of where I’m at today. Um, is like what can I do to grow our companies, grow me as a person, be supportive as a parent, and so forth. And so that’s really where this, the the invention of CEO concierge came into play. Because in talking to my friends who are also business and entrepreneurs, they were like, Jana, you’ve got something here figured out on the VAs, on the virtual assistants that you really need to bring out to other entrepreneurs, especially women. And that’s where that really kind of play came into play because I think, and I’ve noticed this more after being in CEO concierge for two years, is that women are very relationship driven and men are more tactical. But the other thing was is I think because, and I’m not saying all of us, but we’re running our households, we’re running our companies, we’re running ourselves, we’re overwhelmed, but we’re also want to be perfectionist. And so that’s where I think a lot of the control and overwhelmness comes from. And so I really playing into that, at least with the female entrepreneurs, to really understand like you don’t have to do it all. And this is why.

Jeremy: 10:52
Yeah, that makes sense. Awesome. So what is so you you started CEO concierge, you have a like a team of of uh contractors essentially that that you provide, or how does that work?

Jana: 11:05
Well, we became a Philippines entity in May of 24. So all my employees in the Philippines are all my staff in the Philippines are part of the entity. They are employees. So we are able, because this was very important to me to be able to give them benefits. And and 82% of my staff in the Philippines are female, and a lot of them are mothers. And so I really wanted to make sure that they felt that, well, all of them, that they had my support and the and the growth and the professional development that they need and want as well. And so that’s why we did go in and establish as employees.

Jeremy: 11:50
Nice, nice. So what is the, you know, I asked, I asked all my guests what topics they’d like to discuss, you know, before diving in. And one thing that you provided I thought was pretty interesting. Uh you said the $100,000 mistake that most CEOs make when hiring their first virtual assistant. And so what talk through that that big mistake that’s that most CEOs make.

Jana: 12:16
I think, well, let me rephrase that. I know.

Jana: 12:23
We there’s this thought process that a virtual assistant is going to come in and be able to take over and help that person from ground from from day one, knowing everything they should know. And and no one no one brings in an employee that way, right? Like, if I was to bring in, you know, uh a manager in my restaurants, I’ve got to train them. Like they don’t know everything, they don’t know my core values, our, you know, as a company, they don’t so on and so forth. And I think there’s this misconception that this, oh, I hired this virtual assistant. They’re gonna know how I want my emails responded to, and they’re gonna know that that they that you know, Susie has to be, she’s always out of the office by three o’clock. You know, they they just they know this. And so they get so there’s this level of frustration that comes over from the CEO and the or the client that they don’t know what they’re doing. And it’s not that they don’t know what they’re doing, it’s that no one has taken one hour, 30 minutes. We do, we do an onboarding call with them, but there has to be an understanding that they’re not gonna know how you want a certain email responded to, or that you know, you have to set some guidelines, just like you do for anyone else in your company, and expectations and and and and that open communication. And I think that is where the biggest mistake comes in and the frustration comes in, because they don’t they the expectation is that these people are gonna know what they’re doing. And yes, they do know what they’re doing, they don’t know what they’re doing for that particular client as far as how they want interaction to happen or how they want to be, how they want communication and to be done. And that’s where it gets costly because what happens is they are piecemealing it out and it’s not working. And so I really this is where I come in with a lot of our clients and say, okay, this, you know, when we’re doing the discovery call with them, and then when we’re doing the onboarding call with them, where we are I’m very clear. We are very clear to them and say, look, it is going to be a walk. There is going to be daily communications for the first couple weeks. You are going to feel that you don’t have control over the situation. You are like, I’m trying to make them feel like trying to make them understand like this is not something that is going to happen overnight, but it is going to happen very quickly, but you also have to put in the time. And I think that’s where the misnomer comes into play. And so I always have to say, Well, you do do this with any of your other employees. And then I’m like, Well, if I have a turnover issue, I know why. So, because it gets costly. They get frustrated, it the CEOs get frustrated, and there’s no reason, there’s no reason why, really.

Jeremy: 15:41
Yeah. Um what’s the what’s the what’s something you’ve learned as you’ve onboarded these assistants to to CEOs and executives? What’s maybe the top onboarding tip? Like what’s, you know, you mentioned like, oh, you’re gonna have a touch point every day for two weeks. That’s a good good practical thing, but like what’s another practical, like, hey, I’m starting with a new executive, or hey, I’m gonna hire an assistant, what do I need to do in the first 30 days?

Jana: 16:06
Well, I think first and foremost is uh to let the virtual assistant know, and and this and this applies to executive assistants in person, personal is like for me if I’m hiring an executive assistant, virtual assistant, to me, that is that is so encompassing of task, right? And so I am very clear with my virtual assistants that the task could change, expectations could change, uh, priorities definitely change on a daily basis in my business. And so are they okay with that? Are they is there gonna be any frustration, you know, please understand there’s frustration. But here’s the thing you have to ask me clarifying questions. You have to ask me clarifying questions when you have me. Because if you don’t, I’m assuming you know what you’re doing. And then if you don’t, and you come back three days later and ask me a clarifying question of something we just went through, I’m gonna be very frustrated.

Jana: 17:15
Right.

Jana: 17:16
And so we’re really, but the other thing we focus on also when CEO concierge is we do personality assessments and we are really, and I think this is also key because this is this is key in any business, right? You get along, you are going to collaborate better with someone that is complimenting you, not complimenting your work, right? So, like for me, I really need someone that’s gonna be detailed oriented because I’m not. So we could be we could be collaborating on a Zoom call, but I’m not really taking notes. They’re the ones taking notes. So we are making sure that we are matching personalities up. So I’m very autonomous. I need someone that’s autonomous, but not to my level. I need someone that’s detailed, I need someone that’s a sense of urgency, but it’s patient. So I am so we’re using those personality assessments, which is I I call it our cheat sheet, right? Because we’re making sure, because I I mean I don’t know about you, but I work with people that I don’t like, I don’t jive with, I don’t work well with, and we don’t we don’t produce to the level that I would if I’m working with someone that I can work well with, if that makes sense.

Jeremy: 18:34
Yeah, totally. So what’s your what are some of your favorite, or do you have like what just one main personality test that you case?

Jana: 18:41
So we use culture index.

Jeremy: 18:43
Okay.

Jana: 18:44
Um, we use culture index. We has off we have also used 16 personalities. Um we have used that, um, but we really utilize culture index. And the other thing I think that’s important is especially when you’re dealing with the CEO of a company, a C-suite, a lot of people are touching those people. And so I think it’s very important that everyone that the assistant is dealing with is taken into account because you could be reporting to the CEO, but say the CEO is growing, the business is growing and they’ve added a director level in between them. Well, they need to make sure that who’s ever reporting now to the director is gonna get along with is gonna jive with the director. Because if they’re not, then then the personality becomes a complete the production, the productivity, everything becomes an issue because the they’re just not clicking. And so that is one of the things that we really drive in. I mean, I have we have clients that have multiple partners, right? There’s three founders. We’re doing the personality assessment on all three of them. We’re not doing it on the one. And I think that because when you’re interviewing someone in person, you kind of get the body language and you get their you get all you get that feeling, right? You get a gut feeling like, oh, I really like this person. I don’t know. And so I think sometimes when you’re dealing with virtual, whether it’s work from home companies, you know, I think there’s a lot of companies doing, you know, come back to work, come back to the office right now. I think you lose a lot of that. And so this is just another step to make sure it happens.

Jeremy: 20:34
Awesome. Um what about the idea of, we talk a lot about this in the in the assistant world, this idea of being a business partner or a strategic business partner. Um and you know, you’re obviously working with the executives and trying to encourage them and and uh encourage them to treat their assistant as a business partner. Tell us a little bit about how you how you maybe present that business case to these executives, how you help the assistants uh you know own that and lean into that and see themselves as as strategic partners.

Jana: 21:14
I think it’s very important. I think getting your ideas brainstorm uh how different getting outside the box. I think uh for me, with my virtual assistants, they have ideas that I would have never thought about because they see, they’re seeing in like in our database system, we use Trello, right? They’re seeing their bookkeeping in my books, in my invoices, they’re seeing our emails, they’re seeing the calendar, they’re seeing maybe efficiencies that could be fixed, they’re seeing uh an idea that we’re struggling with that maybe they have an idea that you know what, but no one’s asking them. So we really, so that’s where I’m like, I’m always, if I’m on a call, I’m always saying, Well, what do you think? Well, what do you think? And sometimes they’re kind of when it first happens, they’re taken back. They’re like, What what do you mean? What do I think about this idea? Like, this is your company, right? And I’m like, no, but you’re engaged, you’re seeing stuff, you probably have an idea. Number one. Number two, you know what? They talk to each other in our company, the virtual assistants. There might be something going on in a company, or I might see something. Um, and I have a firsthand to it, but I might see like something that might be working at a company, and yeah, we’re gonna talk to that client, be like, hey, this is awesome. Do you do you have any qualms? Do you have any confidentiality? Do you do you mind if we share this? Because this might work over there. Like it’s not a competition, whatever, whatever. I’ll use an example. I have a client who had this recruiting process that was dynamite. And I, as for the Jimmy John side of it, was like, we need to do this, right? And so we went to the client and I said, I don’t know what you’re doing, but can I talk to your VA? Can my VA and your VA talk and figure out if this is something I could institute over here? And she was like, sure, no problem, right? She’s in Vegas and I’m over in St. Louis, and there’s no competition. And so they did. And then they got they got it figured out and they presented it to me and we launched it. And let me tell you, it made a huge difference. And but I didn’t have to do anything. And I mean, so there’s so they’re bringing stuff together that they’re seeing and hearing from other things that cut down on help with my efficiencies and help with my profitability. And so I think that’s where I say bringing bringing them in as a partner is is making sure that you’re including them because I think that they see things that you’re you’re not thinking of because you’re in the well, right? You’re in the you’re in the trenches.

Jeremy: 24:08
Yeah. So I love that too, because you know, those listening either are part of a uh assistant team at their company, or they’re not like me. They might be the only assistant in their company, but you know, that’s why I have the leader assistant community, leader assistant resources, so that they can reach out and connect with other assistants because part of being a uh, like you mentioned, a business partner is hey, you know what? I am aware of what’s going on in in this industry. I’m aware of what other assistants are doing with their executives and with their teams, and I’m gonna go learn and network and and grow from that interaction with with uh with peers. And so just being able to put yourself out there and connect with other people and and be willing willing and open to hear how are you being treated like a business partner and how are you helping your executive see you as a business partner? Um, is that’s great, super helpful.

Jana: 25:07
Yeah. I mean, the productivity, you know, you got to be proactive, right? The other thing I think it’s really it’s really interesting. Um, it didn’t even phase me. So um uh my sales team and I were on a training on Friday, a long training on Friday, and it was phenomenal. And we we already had our call and recapped and said, okay, what are our takeaways from it? Whatever, and all of us talked. And the virtual uh salesperson that was on the call sent me an email and she’s like, Hey, is there any certifications that came out of that training? Because I would love to be able to include that. She didn’t say resume, because I was like, leave it me. But um the professional development too, the upskilling of an assistant, like they want to continue. You I want to support my assistants to continue to grow professionally, personally, and professionally. And so if there’s the ability for them to attain, there’s so much free AI training right now. Like if you talk about AI, right? If there’s so much free AI training, why wouldn’t you? I mean, like I’m constantly saying those to my virtual assistants, like, hey, this might be something that you could really benefit from. Yeah, right. And so I think that is also key. And that’s part of like treating them as a business partner. You you’re gonna send your employees to training, why wouldn’t you send your assistant to training?

Jeremy: 26:35
Yeah, totally. And you know, why wouldn’t you send your assistant to leader assistant training course? You know, there’s a free podcast that you can listen to, you know, all the things. No, but yeah, that’s awesome. Janna, thank you so much for sharing. And I I love uh I love catching up with folks, especially in my state, uh, my home state. Um but yeah, hopefully we’ll run into each other sometime in uh Kansas City or St. Louis. But what’s uh what’s the best place for people to reach out if they want to learn more and find out more about you?

Jana: 27:10
CEOconcierge.com is how to reach me.

Jeremy: 27:24
Awesome, awesome. Well, I will put those links in the show notes at leaderassistant.com/370. Uh you can reach out and say hi to Jana. Um, but yeah, I appreciate your time. Uh thanks so much. Good luck with your business and uh appreciate uh yeah you being on the show.

Jana: 27:41
Thank you, Jeremy.

Diana Brandl is a longtime C-Suite assistant, and host of the Executive Office Insights podcast.

In this spotlight episode, Diana interviews Patrick Jephson – former Chief of Staff to Princess Diana.

CONNECT WITH PATRICK

• Patrick on LinkedIn

ABOUT PATRICK

For eight years Patrick Jephson was Princess Diana’s private secretary (Chief of Staff), responsible for every aspect of her public life and private organization. He travelled with the Princess to five continents, working with officials up to head of state and encountering unforgettable figures in politics, philanthropy and the arts such as Hillary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Mother Teresa, Bono and Luciano Pavarotti. Under relentless media scrutiny, his tenure covered the period of Princess Diana’s greatest popularity as well as the constitutional controversy of her separation from Prince Charles.

He is now a consultant, journalist, broadcaster and New York Times bestselling author, based in Washington DC. His byline has appeared in every UK national newspaper and international titles as varied as TIME magazine, Vanity Fair, People, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Paris Match.

A published authority on corporate and personal branding, Patrick equally enjoys coaching C-suite executives, advising UHNWIs on reputation management and addressing PR conferences worldwide. Having worked for an internationally high-profile woman, he feels a special affinity for cross-cultural, protocol, gender and communications issues.

He also writes, presents and advises on factual and drama TV programs, appearing on every major US network. He is currently an expert consultant to the award-winning Netflix series The Crown.

Patrick was born and raised in Ireland and holds a master’s degree in political science from Cambridge University. A keen amateur historian, his ancestors include notable courtiers to Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and William III. As an officer in the British Royal Navy, he served all over the world before being selected for royal duty. In March 2015 he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

ABOUT EXECUTIVE OFFICE INSIGHTS with DIANA BRANDL

Executive Office Insights is a podcast for executive support professionals hosted by Diana Brandl – an accomplished trainer, consultant, coach, and former C-suite senior executive assistant with nearly two decades of experience at renowned international companies, this podcast dives deep into the evolving world of executive excellence.

Diana explores the critical themes shaping the modern workplace, including leadership dynamics, digital transformation, AI, and the future of work. Featuring insightful conversations with a diverse range of German and English-speaking experts, each episode equips listeners with actionable insights and strategies to thrive in the ever-changing executive office landscape.

–––

THE LEADER ASSISTANT ACADEMY

Enroll in the on-demand, AI-powered professional development resource for Leader Assistants who want to level up. Learn more -> The Leader Assistant Academy.

THE LEADER ASSISTANT BOOK

Download the first 3 chapters of The Leader Assistant: Four Pillars of Game-Changing Assistant for FREE here or buy it on Amazon and listen to the audiobook on Audible. Also, check out the companion study guide, The Leader Assistant Workbook, to dig deeper.

JOIN THE FREE COMMUNITY

Join the Leader Assistant Global Community for bonus content, job opportunities, and to network with other assistants who are committed to becoming leaders!

THE LEADER ASSISTANT PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP

To learn more about how you can join growth-minded Leader Assistants, check out our Leader Assistant Premium Membership for ongoing training, coaching, and community.

LEADER ASSISTANT LIVE EVENTS

Check out our constantly updated schedule of events for admins and assistants at LeaderAssistantLive.com.

SUBSCRIBE

Subscribe to The Leader Assistant Podcast so you don’t miss new episodes!

You can find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pandora, and Stitcher.

Join my email list here if you want to get an email when a new episode goes live.

LEAVE A REVIEW

If you’re enjoying the podcast, please take 2 minutes to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Each review helps me stay motivated to keep the show going!

–––

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Speaker 2: 00:46
Hey friends, thanks for tuning in to the Leader Assistant Podcast. I’m excited to share another spotlight episode of my friend Diana Brandl’s show, Executive Office Insights. Be sure to check out the show notes for more information about her show and today’s featured guest. But in the meantime, enjoy this conversation and keep leading well.

Speaker: 01:14
The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, game-changing leader assistants.

Speaker 2: 01:28
Check out the show notes to this episode at leaderassistant.com/369.

Speaker 1: 01:35
It is always a huge pleasure for me to introduce my international network to all of you. And today it is Patrick Jephson, former private secretary and chief of staff to the late Princess Diana. He was responsible for every aspect of her public life and private organization. And I can tell you there are so many great stories he’s sharing with us while he was working for eight years alongside Princess Diana. But of course, there’s so much more to learn about Patrick. He is now working as a consultant, a journalist, a broadcaster. He is a New York Times best-selling author. And I can tell you he has been appeared in every UK national newspaper and also a few international titles like The Time magazine, Vanity Fair, People, and of course our German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He is also consulting at the very famous network series The Crown. I’m sure many people of you have seen all those wonderful episodes already. I cannot wait for the new ones to arrive. So he’s he’s consulting. He’s working um with uh the actors there, and he has a lot to share with us. So I’m very honored to introducing the wonderful Patrick Jefferson to you all. Please enjoy. Welcome everybody to the podcast The Future Assistant, a podcast full of inspiration, encouragement, and empowerment for administrative professionals. Tune in, level up, and get motivated by the stories you are about to hear. So here we are again with another episode for the Future Assistant Podcast. And I am connected now to a gentleman based in the Washington, DC metro area. Welcome, Patrick Jeffson. An honor to have you here on the show today.

Speaker 3: 03:31
And it’s great to be with you again.

Speaker 1: 03:33
Yes, and it’s just so wonderful to continue our talk because the expert session we were running in December 2020 was such a huge success. And I’ve been receiving so many messages from people who were not able to attend. So I told them I need to get you in front of a microphone again in order to tell your story again and uh what’s happening in your life. So I’m very happy that you’re ready to do that again. So here we are. Uh a warm welcome uh to you, Patrick. And um, I mentioned it already. Uh you’re based in the Washington, D.C. metro area, and I’m quite familiar with the area from my Opair year back in the year 1998, 1999. I know I feel like a little old now when I say that, but it was a wonderful time living in the Virginia area. Um, but hey, you are not originally from the US, actually. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background, Patrick?

Speaker 3: 04:26
Well, Diana, I’m I’m really very fortunate in that I have, I suppose, a bit of a mixed-up background. I’m a bit of a, if I were a if I were a puppy, I’d be a mongrel probably. Um I uh I was born and grew up in Ireland. Uh and uh I’ve always been grateful for that. It’s it’s um uh a real bonus in a way to have a perspective on the world that comes from a small country. Um and um uh I’m also fortunate in that I don’t know why particularly, but Irish people seem to be seem to be welcome wherever they go in the world, and I’ve always found that, and I’m very grateful. Um my mother was from Scotland, and um she had a strong belief in in education, and uh she had all boys, and she believed in us uh being independent and um being confident. She sent us to a uh a Scottish boarding school where we were toughened up pretty well. Um and then I went to Cambridge, where I read uh political science, which um uh I was told was a great degree for conversation at cocktail parties, and that has proved the case. Then I I at that time I already had quite a sense of adventure, and I was interested in history, and I went and worked for two seasons on a big archaeological dig in Jordan and traveled around the Middle East for chiking mostly, which was very formative. Um and it gave me the sense for adventure and for travel. And uh while at Cambridge, I applied to join the the Royal Navy, the British Navy, um, because I I was uh attracted by the pictures in the recruitment brochure. I like the idea of serving something bigger than myself. Um and and it’s true, an employer like the Navy that that requires you not just to sail around the oceans, but also, if necessary, to give your life for the job, um, that concentrates your mind. And I rather that that appealed to me. I was glad that the even on a bad day, I could look at uh the ship or at the flag or at the sailors and think, yep, this is something really worth serving. And I think I was fortunate, and I would recommend that to anybody. If you can serve something bigger than yourself, feel you were part of something worthwhile, that’s a real reward. That’s a great benefit. While I was there in the Navy, I was selected to be Princess Diana’s military aide on a two-year second, um, which was sort of like winning the lottery, uh, certainly at that time in the in the late 80s, um, to go from bobbing around the ocean in a little gray ship to working for the most glamorous, beautiful um photographed woman in the world was was quite surreal. But I suppose again the the the message from that was um I didn’t really know what the job was, but I knew that I wanted to do it. I just felt that in when I looked back on my life, it was an opportunity I couldn’t have turned down.

Speaker 1: 07:49
Absolutely, absolutely. And we have to also uh add that you were the first and only private secretary and chief of staff uh to the late Princess of Wales, Diana. So, of course, the audience is keen to know how did you land this job?

Speaker 3: 08:02
Ah, well, um there I was as a military aide on a two-year secondment. Um, but at the end of that time, uh Princess Diana and Prince Charles were beginning to separate. I mean, it was very sad, but that was the reality. And so she said to me, Don’t go back to the Navy, come and set up my office, work for me full-time, run my public life. And she said, Um, we will go conquer the world.

Speaker 1: 08:28
And I remember you told me that you had this lunch conversation, uh the conversation over lunch with her, right?

Speaker 3: 08:33
Yep, I mean, there’s nothing like aiming high. So dream big. That’s a good rule. Um, but again, I was quite sure that the job was going to be difficult and challenging and probably very stressful. But I couldn’t turn it down. I couldn’t, she was a very difficult lady to say no to. Um, but I just knew that uh again, when I was, if I ever lived to be old, uh, that I would want to look back on it. And uh it would be sure to give me um memories, but also like the Navy, lots of travel.

Speaker 1: 09:10
I would go interesting places and even aviation was involved, and you’re a huge aviation fan.

Speaker 3: 09:17
Yes. Now, Diana, it’s funny you mentioned that because um it sounds silly, but uh I was, I am interested in airplanes. And Diana used to laugh at me when we went on the Royal Airplane. You know, I would be I would be interested in the airplane, and she would laugh and she said, Oh, Patrick, you know, what a kid you are. Um but uh there were many times, particularly very stressful or difficult times, when being able to um take a little uh uh holiday for myself in the airplane, just in my mind, even. And I think that’s a good tip. If you can, if you have a passion, I mean it could be orchids or you know, stamp collecting or dancing. I mean, if you have a passion, develop it, use it, because it will it will be a wonderful refuge for you in tough times. And of course, we went on lots of interesting airplanes and we flew fascinating places. I mean, just operationally.

Speaker 1: 10:14
Yes.

Speaker 3: 10:15
That as that aspect of the job fascinated me.

Speaker 1: 10:18
So how how was it on the Concorde the first time? What was the feeling?

Speaker 3: 10:23
Well, the Concord, of course, the uh the supersonic airliner was um the ultimate way to travel. There was nothing better than the Concord. It was if you arrived on the Concord, you were special. And many of my of my favorite travel memories with Princess Diana were flights on the Concord. Um, uh, not least because um it was very comfortable and there was very nice wine and and uh the food was good. But one time Diana said to me, uh Um, you know, you really enjoy this, Patrick, don’t you? And I said, Yeah, well yeah, I do, as it happens. And she said, Well, you know, I’m only doing this to keep you happy. Thank you. And uh one time the the the captain of the Concord came came back into the cabin and said to the princess, Well, you know, Your Royal Highness, would you like to come in the cockpit, you know, for the takeoff? And um she said, No, thanks, but Patrick will come.

Speaker 1: 11:19
And you were like, Oh yes, I’m in, right?

Speaker 3: 11:23
Yeah, but the poor captain was disappointed. He wanted he wanted the princess and he ended up with me.

Speaker 1: 11:28
But you know, what was the flight time again from London to New York? Was it in three hours or something?

Speaker 3: 11:33
It was three hours going and sometimes you know, less than three hours coming back.

Speaker 1: 11:36
Wow.

Speaker 3: 11:37
Um, but of course, Diana, even if you were in Concord or in, as we often were, interesting private planes, um, you were still working. And I think for a lot of for a lot of our listeners, you know, uh people think it’s very glamorous going in the company jet. Um, and of course it is sometimes, but the truth is it’s a flying office. And in that sort of close job where you are working very um uh uh for prolonged periods of close contact with your boss, you have to be on duty all the time. You cannot let your guard slip. Um, and so uh yes, a lot of the flying was fun, but it was also some of the toughest time. A lot of hard work, no relax. You know, I could be more relaxed in the back row of economy in the British Airways plane coming back from the from the reconnaissance trip. That was that was easier.

Speaker 1: 12:31
Yes, I can only I can only imagine. So uh you’ve seen great places uh traveling together with Diana. So is there anything you specifically love to remember you want to share with us? Uh, one of these moments?

Speaker 3: 12:44
Well, I suppose really the thing, Diana, was the contrast. Um, you know, one trip you might be in uh rural Africa visiting a uh a refugee camp or a very, very um moving uh hospital for orphans dying of HIV AIDS. Um the next week you might be in Washington, in the White House, meeting the president. So uh again, that’s very um intellectually very satisfying, being able to, you have to be versatile, you have to adapt quickly, you have to be very agile in terms of your protocol and your cross-cultural understanding. So any of us who get the chance to be exposed to widely varying um environments, uh, yes, it’s enviable, I suppose, um, but it is also stressful. It’s not for everybody. Yes. And you have to know yourself and your own personal setup whether that is going to thrill you and energize you, or or whether it’s going to damage you, whether it’s going to um uh deprive you of of the right work-life balance, whether you are just not physically, constitutionally um sufficiently versatile. There’s no there’s no shame in that, but it is important that if you find yourself in that sort of of role, you have to be able to give it everything. Um you have to feel that you are succeeding, because if you’re not, uh it can eat away at your self-confidence. Every day I had a battle with imposter syndrome.

Speaker 1: 14:27
Yeah.

Speaker 3: 14:28
You know, I would think, what am I doing here? Yes, yes.

Speaker 1: 14:31
And being away from your family, right? I mean, work life balance is a real thing. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 14:36
Yes, yep, little, very small at the time. Uh and you know, if I have a regret, it is that I didn’t have my work-life balance properly organized.

Speaker 4: 14:45
Yeah.

Speaker 3: 14:46
Um, okay, at the time, uh, it seemed important. The job seemed more important. And and many of us feel like that uh with our with our with our roles. But let me tell you, from a position as you know, now having grown up daughters, um, you never get back those those uh years when they are small. And um, yes, the work may be exciting and it may be very fulfilling for you personally, but just remember the graveyards are full of indispensable people.

Speaker 1: 15:16
Absolutely. You are so right, Patrick. Yeah. So um why don’t you give us a little insight about the job actually? Uh how was it to organize the life of Princess Diana?

Speaker 3: 15:28
Well, I had great advantage in that she had asked me to set it up. So I was not taking over an organization that was running well or running badly. You know, an organization that’s running well puts a lot of pressure on you, and so is taking over a bad organization because you then have to have to improve it. By starting something off, that in a way is perhaps the biggest challenge of all because what you do sets the standard. And you have you have a lot of freedom. Well, Diana gave me a lot of freedom to set it up the way I wanted, and I had a pretty good idea how I wanted it to be. Um with Diana, it was um always important to remember that she was extremely professional. I know that we have this image of her now as a very emotionally approachable, uh rather informal kind of super celebrity, but actually she was a professional. She worked really hard. She was diligent. In fact, the letter D comes up quite a bit. She was diligent, she was dutiful, um, she was very um committed to her work, uh, not just as a humanitarian, but as a as a royal person too. So while a lot of our work, particularly overseas, was charity-based, a lot of it too, was trade promotion, diplomacy, cultural work. Um, these things are forgotten about her. But we we need to remember, and I like to I like to remind myself and others that she was first and foremost a kind of ambassador for her country. Um, she took that very seriously. She was very dutiful, very diligent, very detail-oriented. Yes. You know, with some bosses, you can get things past them, you can, as they say in English, pull the wool over their eyes, you can you can kind of get away with stuff. I could get away with nothing.

Speaker 1: 17:14
She would see the mistake uh in a letter or with a.

Speaker 3: 17:17
Not so much in the letter, I mean, because she she was very smart, but she was not academically very, very, very accomplished, as she admitted. But she was very smart, very observant. And um, you know, some organizations, you can get away with second-rate work.

Speaker 5: 17:33
Yeah.

Speaker 3: 17:33
Uh with Diana, you could not. She she uh was very, very observant. But it taught me um that uh you have to develop what I call forgivability. You have you you you have to have a relationship with your boss where they will trust you to tell them if you if you make a mistake.

Speaker 4: 17:55
Yeah.

Speaker 3: 17:55
So very very early on in my time with Diana, I made a point of going to her and saying, look, I’ve made a mistake. And she said, Nobody makes mistakes in the British Royal Family. I said, Well, I just made a mistake. And she said, Nobody, nobody has ever admitted that to me before.

Speaker 4: 18:10
Wow.

Speaker 3: 18:10
Um, so uh it was great in that she then trusted me to tell her if things went wrong. Um not too often, but just enough, just enough to allow her to forgive me. Because forgivability, um, and I now teach this to my to my clients, it is it is that quality that gets you the benefit of the doubt when you make a mistake. Right. Everybody makes mistakes, everybody does. But the key is how you respond, how you build back, how you how you use the mistake to make things better in future. And again, dealing with Danis, the the um the staff that I recruited, um, I encouraged the sense of uh that people could share information. That was very important, um, that we were very tight-knit, very lean, as they say. Um, we were responsive, nimble, um, quite uh quite in royal terms, we were quite thrifty too. We were we were good value. But this idea that individuals had to be able to feel that they could admit their mistakes without fearing failure, that they could admit mistakes and we could all benefit from it.

Speaker 1: 19:19
Yeah, absolutely. So you just mentioned that uh she was very detail-oriented. How how else would you describe her as a boss? Kind of a leadership style she had.

Speaker 3: 19:30
She had terrific leadership qualities, and uh bear in mind, I uh in the Navy we we studied leadership and I uh served under some great leaders. Uh Diana had natural leadership. Um she was obviously physically uh very, very imposing. She was um five foot ten, what’s that, just under two meters, right? Um uh with plus hair and heels. Uh she had a very penetrating blue gaze. You know, her eyes were were very um powerful instruments. She used them really well.

Speaker 5: 20:07
Yes.

Speaker 3: 20:08
Uh and she um could read people, she could read the mood, she could read a run. Um, she thrived on uh uh challenges, difficult people, um, people sometimes who didn’t like her, people who were uh not fans, just obviously as she was with people who were in great need or who were suffering.

Speaker 4: 20:31
Right.

Speaker 3: 20:31
Um so as uh her leadership style was um to develop a sense of spontaneity, um, but always to prepare hard, you know, to work hard to prepare the details. And this is the trick. Great leaders make it look easy. Yes. But it isn’t. It looks easy because they did the hard work first. And people like me didn’t see the first thing.

Speaker 1: 20:56
You were in the back, of course. The hidden leaders, right?

Speaker 3: 21:02
I used to say, I used to say, behind every great woman, there is a man worrying about the schedule.

Speaker 1: 21:08
Oh, and by the way, can you tell the story about Mother Teresa? And you were worried about catching that plane. I need to hear this again, please, Patrick.

Speaker 3: 21:17
Well, to tell you something about Diana’s style, her leadership style, her management style, she was extremely time conscious. Very, very punctual. She said, you know, this is courtesy. And therefore, I was in trouble if the program uh got got behind, you know, if things were not happening on time. So I tried to develop her programs, her timetable for every day, with a little bit of extra time here and there so that she could be spontaneous, so that she could stop, talk, chat. Um, but we were visiting Mother Teresa, and I had not left much time for spontaneity. It all seemed very well organized. We knew when things were supposed to happen. And we were running on time. I was feeling very pleased. And then Mother Teresa said, Will you come and pray with me in my private chapel? To Diana. And to me, actually. And you don’t say no to Mother Teresa. I couldn’t, I couldn’t look at my watch and say, no, sorry, no time. So um we went in to pray in in Mother’s private chapel. And that, of course, was a very, very special experience.

Speaker 4: 22:30
Oh, yes.

Speaker 3: 22:31
Uh, extraordinarily spiritually um intense.

Speaker 4: 22:36
Right.

Speaker 3: 22:37
So we were praying and praying, and I was thinking, I wonder how long this is going on. Uh and uh, you know, I kind of looked up from my prayer, and there was Mother Theresa still praying. And I looked across at Diana, and she was going, you know, question, how long? What are we what’s next here? Um, so then I started praying. Please, Lord, may this prayer end soon.

Speaker 1: 24:34
We have to catch a plane, exactly. That’s a wonderful story. I always love when you hear that. Thank you so much for sharing it again with us, Patrick.

Speaker 3: 24:42
And of and of course, um, we did leave exactly on time. So always, but the moral of the story is always leave time for prayer.

Speaker 1: 24:54
By the way, speaking of Mother Teresa, of course, you met many other incredible people during uh the time with Diana. There was Bono, there was Hillary Clinton, and and many, many more. So what were the people you remember instantly and why?

Speaker 3: 25:10
It’s true, Diana. I was very fortunate in meeting, gosh, a lot of big big names. But um the rule I made for myself was it doesn’t matter who I’m meeting, I have to continue to do my job. You couldn’t afford to be distracted by the people you’re meeting or the places you were or the whatever may else be going on, right? You have to remain focused. Um and um yes, some of those sort of famous people do stay in my memory, but uh the ones you know who really stay in my memory, who meant who meant the most at the time, were not the famous faces, they were the the ones in the background or the people um way down the importance order who were just doing their job and very well, um, who had time uh to be kind or who did that extra bit that that made the difference for me between um success and big success. Uh, and I think that that was a good lesson also that um I judged, I learned to judge the so-called important people by how they treated the less important people. Yes. And um I recognized the the real heroes and the angels and the saints, uh, and just the great people were they were not the ones who were rushing up to be in the camera or to be to meet the princess. They were just doing their jobs, and they were great fun, and many of them um remain friends to this day. And many of them, in some places we traveled, you know, their their lives were at risk. Um, their families were at risk. They endured extraordinary difficulties and privations, and it always reminded me how fortunate I was, and you know, reminded me to count my own blessings. And um, that’s still something I do.

Speaker 1: 27:04
That’s true. And it’s it’s wonderful how you described this. Uh, very humble. Um, I really, really uh enjoyed listening to that, Patrick. Thank you. Um, so you resigned actually from the position a year before the tragic death of Diana. Uh, why did you find it was time to actually stop working for her and move on? When did you feel it?

Speaker 3: 27:29
I suppose there were a number of factors. You know, if you have a demanding job, an intense job, when you’re working very closely with somebody, you’re gonna have some bad days. Um, you have to be prepared for it. I sometimes have the impression that people expect every day to be to be wonderful. Um maybe for some people it is. But for me, I had some I had some very difficult times. And when you’re working closely with somebody, you have your own bad times and you have their bad times too. And you have to you have to be able to absorb their bad moves, their bad days, their bad temper, whether it’s your fault or not. Uh that’s that goes with working closely with somebody. Um so it it follows that uh in that very close sort of relationship, you have to be able to read each other’s moves, really, and to adapt for them, allow for them. There has to be complete trust. Um and when um, as inevitably it happens, you go through a bad patch. Yeah. And I went through I went through several. Um, you have to be able to develop the necessary thick skin. You have to be able to absorb the criticism. Doesn’t always come from your boss, it can can come from other people. I mean, okay, you know, royal courts throughout history have been famous for court politics, but every organization has its court. You know, they have their kings and their princes and their and their ambitious jokers, and that we all have to deal with these difficult interpersonal aspects. Um, I uh thought it was part of my job also to monitor my relationship with my boss. I always had to ask myself, how’s it going? How can I make it better? Were the threats, how things it was part of my job to make sure that things ran smoothly. And when it was apparent that there was something wrong, um I had to I had to do make a judgment as to whether or not this was just one of those difficult patches that would blow over, or whether it was something more permanent. And was there anything I could do about it? Now, I’ve since learned, and really only just last year, that um a journalist, a BBC journalist called Martin Bashir, yeah, had got to the princess through her brother, uh and had told her lies about me, libels, you know, libeless stuff.

Speaker 5: 29:55
Yeah.

Speaker 3: 29:56
Um, legally culpable things about me, intended to destroy that working trust so that he could get past me to get to her, because I would, you know, I would never have let her speaker in.

Speaker 1: 30:10
Exactly. That famous interview, right?

Speaker 3: 30:12
Yeah, and that’s and because he successfully um persuaded her that I was actually not to be trusted, yeah, uh, that two things happened. One, the relationship between me and her obviously was no longer working the way it had to. Right. And secondly, she agreed to do an interview with him, which was suicidally bad idea, very damaging, and it destroyed her um much of her royal potential.

Speaker 4: 30:43
Yeah.

Speaker 3: 30:44
And just on a professional level for me, that meant that I couldn’t do my job.

Speaker 4: 30:48
Right.

Speaker 3: 30:49
Um, and so when you’re in a situation like that, there are all sorts of emotions that make you want to stay, keep things going the way they were. It’s kind of like it’s kind of like a relationship, but you have to recognize when things cannot be repaired.

Speaker 5: 31:04
Yeah.

Speaker 3: 31:05
And you have to remember too that um you’re responsible for your own life, your own happiness, and for your family. Uh, and uh if you are in a situation where things are not going to get better, you have to leave. You have to make that decision. Um, life is long. You have to take your opportunities where they come. And if you have the courage to leave a difficult or impossible situation, um, in my experience, Providence uh will almost always bring you something else. And you just have to have the attitude and the willingness to look for it.

Speaker 1: 31:41
Yeah. Absolutely. And uh yeah, and as we all know, uh a chapter ends and a new chapter is awaiting for us, right? Um so for sure, um we all remember the night back in August in 1997 when Diana died in the tragic car crash. Do you remember where where you were at that moment and what came to your mind when you heard about it?

Speaker 3: 32:07
Um well, I resigned a year before she died. So uh we had no contact at this stage. You know, we left we we parted on bad terms, which is which is a shame. Um, so um uh and the real tragedy, Diana, is that she died thinking that I had betrayed her. That’s yeah, I know thanks to thanks to the the lies that she was told. That’s very upsetting. But yeah, uh when I got the news, I it was very early in the morning. Um and um I was terribly shocked, obviously, and and upset, but part of me almost was was not surprised. Um by that stage, she no longer had the kind of support structure that I had created, and she was uh she had put herself in the care of people who were not competent to look after her. If you study as I have, I I mean I testified at the inquest in her death. Right um she died because of incompetence, because of uh um negligence, lack of planning, um, lack of common sense, lack of of uh proper procedures.

Speaker 6: 33:24
Yeah.

Speaker 3: 33:25
Um and um of course uh what happened was that she had um meant that she was vulnerable to the kind of those kind of misjudgments.

Speaker 6: 33:38
Yeah.

Speaker 3: 33:38
Um and that was very, very, very sad. And she left a uh a gap in the in the royal family, but also I think in the world that that will never will never be filled.

Speaker 1: 33:50
And I think you you you told me that you attended the funeral, you were even kind of involved in it, right?

Speaker 3: 33:56
Well, I went to Buckingham Palace to see if I could help. You know, they had to arrange the funeral very quickly. Most royal deaths happen uh after long illnesses. We’ve just seen the death of Prince Philip. There was plenty of time to prepare for his funeral. There was no time to prepare for Diana’s funeral. So um I went to see if I could help at the palace. Um, of course, they they had taken another funeral plan off the shelf and adapted it. So there wasn’t much I was able to do. But uh the funeral itself was extraordinarily moving. The great thing was I had a seat in the Abbey, not with all the the VIPs, but with Diana’s charities. So I was I was seeing again faces uh that I hadn’t seen in years, great friendships. And so right after the funeral, we went outside uh into um Parliament Square, and it was a beautiful sunny day. And at our end of the Abbey with all these these old friends, instead of it being a sad occasion, it became a bit of a celebration. And we we you know we shared stories and memories of Diana. Um great happy things, uh, which I felt was a very suitable way to mark the day.

Speaker 1: 35:09
Oh, that’s so beautiful, indeed. Um, so what would you think? Why is Diana’s legacy still so strong? I mean, uh just the other day, you know, when she was supposed to turn 60 years old, there were lots of documentations going on on the television. And um so so many people still talk about her. So what do you think? What is it about her legacy?

Speaker 3: 35:34
Well, one reason I think we still remember her, Diana, is that um she did so much in such a short time. If you think about it, her youngest son, Harry, is now older than she was when she died. Yeah, she did all that. It’s yeah. Uh and her experience mirrors our experience. If you if you think about it, it was a mixture of of um achievement and sadness and disappointment and ultimately tragedy. Uh a lot of her life uh is mirrored in other people’s lives, and yet um the lessons she left us that it’s okay to be vulnerable and strong, yes, um, I think is it has never been more relevant. Yeah um and her combination of duty and compassion is still very relevant, and uh she did leave us a lot of great images, and it is those images, I mean, this was how we how I planned her her programs, that you could see what she was doing through the in through the images that that the world saw. Yeah, um, and unlike a lot of modern um spin doctoring, you know, news management, PR, uh, if you look, for example, at the modern royal family, they all employ PR experts, news managers. Some of them, you know, in the case of uh Harry and Megan, expert Hollywood news managers, image makers. Diana didn’t even have a press secretary.

Speaker 4: 37:11
Ah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 37:12
You know, you know, we had no we we we had no PR uh um contracted. We had we would borrow one of the Queen’s press secretaries for tours. Um but the rest was, and Diana believed in this. She she did her own PR. She said, you know, she did it well.

Speaker 1: 37:29
She did it well.

Speaker 3: 37:30
Yep. If you want to know what what what my message is, look at what I’m doing.

Speaker 1: 37:34
Yes. Yeah. And I think this is indeed part of the legacy we we still see. That’s wonderful. And you just mentioned Harry, actually. Um, so we all know how extremely important the kids were for Diana. So um lots of pictures have been, of course, seen, uh, how happy she was with the kids. So, what is your memory of young William and Harry?

Speaker 3: 37:57
Well, I suppose I was lucky, Diana, in that um they had a very well-organized nursery organization. Um, you know, they had nannies, they had their own protection, they had drivers, uh, and they were at school a lot of the time. Yeah. So um I didn’t I didn’t uh um go looking for them. You know, they they were noisy little boys, and I had a lot of work to do. So uh, but you know, you you came across them quite a lot. And um one very important aspect of of Diana’s life, of course, was that she should be home in time for baths and stories and all of that, which is one re one reason why her day-to-day timetable had to be so efficient, yes, so that she could get back for for important um uh William and Harry uh moments.

Speaker 5: 38:52
Yeah.

Speaker 3: 38:53
Uh and um of course she did bring them up uh in a different way from previous generations, not I think this is a mistake people make, not to make them feel that they were normal, yeah, because she knew their their lives would never be normal. No, but but at least to give them an understanding of what normal life was like for normal kids.

Speaker 1: 39:19
And interestingly, one of the boys decided to have a normal life now, kind of a normal life by by leaving uh the UK. So, but that’s a whole other story. Um so, Patrick, I I cannot ask you, um, you know, I have to ask you about the crown, of course. I mean, I’m sure a lot of people here listening to us, and I’m a big fan as well, uh, watch the Netflix show. Um, it’s it’s been a wonderful show on Netflix, and we have to say that you have been an uh advisor to the show, and um specifically also working with the Diana actress Emma Corin. Um, and uh we’re all desperately waiting for the new episodes to come live. And uh there will be also someone who’s uh playing Patrick Drefsen, right, on the next season. So I can’t wait for these episodes. Is there any sneak peek you can give us here?

Speaker 3: 40:13
Uh well I can say that that there is another season coming, season five. Um, and we’ve been working quite hard on that uh at the moment. Um and uh I spent some time yesterday actually talking to the actor who is going to be me.

Speaker 1: 40:28
Tom Turner.

Speaker 3: 40:29
Well, no, Tom was season four.

Speaker 1: 40:31
Um yes, I remember. Who’s the other guy?

Speaker 3: 40:33
Season five. The new one is is a great actor called Jamie Glover.

Speaker 1: 40:37
Yeah.

Speaker 3: 40:37
And um so uh it’s it’s an interesting bit of, you know, they say you have to be self-aware. Well, talking to somebody else about how to be you is a very good exercise in self-awareness. Um but it was, I mean, it’s it’s I think it’s a wonderful show, and it is not a documentary, you know, yet it’s criticized for not being accurate. Well, I can tell you it it they go to extraordinary lengths to get the detail right.

Speaker 5: 41:05
Yeah.

Speaker 3: 41:06
Um and it, you know, it is a drama. It is a it is a uh but it is authentic, in my opinion, in the sense that it portrays the characters, the dynamics, um, a lot of the issues, the politics very, very accurately. And uh I thought that Emma Coran did a fantastic job in the last season.

Speaker 4: 41:28
I agree.

Speaker 3: 41:29
And it it’s um it’s definitely, I think, a great contribution to the body of work about the royal family. And uh uh yeah, don’t miss it.

Speaker 1: 41:41
Yes, absolutely. I’m gonna definitely watch it when it’s on. So I’m wondering wonderful to see that you’re involved uh advising them. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about your current work and your consultancy? Uh you’ve been mentioning that you work with clients, um also topics around crisis management, reputation uh management. These are one of these topics you cover. Uh, why don’t you give us a little insights uh on the work you’re doing together with your team?

Speaker 3: 42:09
As you can imagine, Diana, working for Diana, I learned a lot. Of uh good skills, not in theory, you know, not in school, not even in college, but but working on the job and learning very quickly. Right. Um and I thought it would be useful to transfer some of those skills to um uh provide services for clients. So I have a a consultancy here in DC with my partner Bill Beaman. Www JeffsonBeaman.com.

Speaker 1: 42:42
Yes, absolutely. We’re gonna put it in the show notes.

Speaker 3: 42:46
And and we are um we’re very fortunate. We do, I mean, our our corporate um slogan is we do interesting work for nice people.

Speaker 5: 42:56
I love that.

Speaker 3: 42:57
Well that does that does certainly include communications, um uh and uh particularly crisis communications, what to do when things go wrong, um, how to avoid things going wrong in the first place, how not to make how not to make things worse. We see this every day. Um great brands, corporations, individuals who have reputation crises, and some survive and indeed even prosper. Right. Others get into a hole and keep digging. And and that’s that’s one of the things we we work on. We also work uh one-to-one or with small groups on communication skills.

Speaker 4: 43:37
Yes.

Speaker 3: 43:38
Um, and uh I particularly work with female executives uh and um because I’m a man who’s worked for a woman, uh that’s still relatively rare and learn a lot from that. And um particularly I enjoy passing on my experiences and helping women in particular develop their unique skills because um uh so often I have found that that having worked for a very, very effective, dynamic, uh, and sometimes uh um impetuous woman boss, uh, I have been able to draw on those experiences, good and bad, to benefit to to benefit women who find themselves sometimes in very demanding and unfamiliar um leadership roles with with uh colleagues, male colleagues who need um to be managed, and I can sometimes help explain how the different mentalities work.

Speaker 1: 44:41
Yeah, absolutely. Great service you’re offering. And as I said, we’re gonna make sure we to put the website into the show notes. And here’s my final question. I can’t believe it’s already over, Patrick. So we want to hear what’s next for Patrick. Any nice uh trips planned, aviation fan, um anything you want to share with us, maybe out of your private life as well? More than welcome to do that.

Speaker 3: 45:05
Well, I uh I’m really fortunate, Diana, in that I have recently um started doing more and more work with assistants, with executive assistants, with chiefs of staff, um, with people who uh whose jobs are in some ways comparable to what mine was. And again, being able to share those experiences uh and hopefully help other people avoid some of the mistakes I made and help help them avoid some of the sleepless nights I had, uh help them avoid growing gray hair like me. That that’s something I enjoy doing. I really love doing that and would love to do more of it. Um but of course uh I yes, I retain a love of flying and aviation, so I’m hoping to do I’ve been fortunate in having quite a few aviation clients, particularly in business uh and general aviation. And uh with with luck, um watch this space, Dina. I may be doing more um uh writing and um marketing work with aviation.

Speaker 1: 46:07
Fabulous. Wow, we can’t wait for it. And um, of course, you are uh regular experts uh when it comes to coverage of uh the late princess of Wales, and it’s always good to see when you uh put some articles out there. So I can only recommend our audience to follow Patrick on LinkedIn. It’s always great stuff he puts out there. So I always appreciate sharing this and getting your views. And I always learn so much new uh when I read these articles. So thank you so much for sharing all of that with us.

Speaker 3: 46:37
Well, Anna, thank you, and everybody. Um it’s been lovely sharing this time with you and do link in with me. I look forward to hearing from you.

Speaker 1: 46:43
Absolutely. I’m gonna make sure to uh to put your LinkedIn link as well in the show notes. So reach out to Patrick and um follow him and all his journeys. And once again, thank you so much for being on the show, Patrick. Truly appreciate this talk that you had the time again, and I can’t wait to release it. And wishing you all the best. And yeah, take good care and uh all the best to the DC area.

Speaker 3: 47:07
Thank you, Dana. It’s been a real pleasure, and thank you everybody for listening.

Speaker 1: 47:11
Thank you, everybody. Take care. Well, I’m pretty much sure that you are all gonna sign up for the crown on next Netflix because um there are so many great stories to hear about the royals and to dive into this history packed um series. I’m a big, big fan. And as I said earlier, I cannot wait to see the new episodes. I cannot wait to see uh the actor that plays Patrick, of course. So we are all gonna be super curious about that. So make sure you reach out to Patrick, stay in touch with him, and if you ever need his service, uh, because he has so much in his portfolio uh to offer, not only to assistants, of course, but also to executives, managers out there. So uh he’s he’s wonderful to work with, and I um can only highly recommend reaching out to him. Uh, thank you so much, Patrick, for being with us. It was a huge pleasure, and uh can’t wait to talk to you soon.

Speaker 2: 48:10
You’re listening to the Leader Assistant Podcast!

Diana Brandl is a longtime C-Suite assistant, and host of the Executive Office Insights podcast.

In this spotlight episode, Diana speaks with the executive support team in Microsoft Germany’s CEO office.

Go behind the scenes of Microsoft Germany’s CEO Office with two inspiring women: Andrea Bross (Executive Assistant) and Svetlana Barsova (Chief of Staff). In this candid conversation, they share what it really takes to support a top executive, manage complex schedules, and keep leadership moving at full speed.

Discover:
The difference between an Executive Assistant and a Chief of Staff
How to manage the CEO Office of Microsoft Germany
Career insights and skills for assistants and chiefs of staff
Tools and strategies that keep leadership effective
Why collaboration and trust are the key to success

This episode is packed with career tips, leadership insights, and behind-the-scenes stories from the fast-paced world of Microsoft. Perfect for aspiring Executive Assistants, future Chiefs of Staff, or anyone curious about leadership support at the highest level.

ABOUT SVETLANA

Svetlana Barsova has been with Microsoft for over 14 years, spending most of that time working at Microsoft in Russia. Since 2023, she has served as Chief of Staff to Agnes Heftberger, CVP & CEO of Microsoft Germany & Austria. Svetlana enjoys engaging with other CEO Offices from our customers and is passionate about sharing how we shape our own CEO Office, foster open and transparent communication, and integrate Copilot into our daily work.

ABOUT ANDREA

Andrea Bross has been with Microsoft Germany for over 6 years and, since July 2024, has been the Executive Assistant to Agnes Heftberger, CVP & CEO of Microsoft Germany & Austria. She supports executive assistants in customer and partner organizations on their journey toward a modern and digital workplace. For the past year and a half, Copilot has become an indispensable part of Andrea’s daily work—she’s happy to demonstrate in customer workshops when and where it can be used in the assistant role. Beyond that, she’s deeply passionate about Diversity & Inclusion topics; she led the Families at Microsoft group for over 3 years and remains an active board member of the group.

ABOUT EXECUTIVE OFFICE INSIGHTS with DIANA BRANDL

Executive Office Insights is a podcast for executive support professionals hosted by Diana Brandl – an accomplished trainer, consultant, coach, and former C-suite senior executive assistant with nearly two decades of experience at renowned international companies, this podcast dives deep into the evolving world of executive excellence.

Diana explores the critical themes shaping the modern workplace, including leadership dynamics, digital transformation, AI, and the future of work. Featuring insightful conversations with a diverse range of German and English-speaking experts, each episode equips listeners with actionable insights and strategies to thrive in the ever-changing executive office landscape.

–––

THE LEADER ASSISTANT ACADEMY

Enroll in the on-demand, AI-powered professional development resource for Leader Assistants who want to level up. Learn more -> The Leader Assistant Academy.

THE LEADER ASSISTANT BOOK

Download the first 3 chapters of The Leader Assistant: Four Pillars of Game-Changing Assistant for FREE here or buy it on Amazon and listen to the audiobook on Audible. Also, check out the companion study guide, The Leader Assistant Workbook, to dig deeper.

JOIN THE FREE COMMUNITY

Join the Leader Assistant Global Community for bonus content, job opportunities, and to network with other assistants who are committed to becoming leaders!

THE LEADER ASSISTANT PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP

To learn more about how you can join growth-minded Leader Assistants, check out our Leader Assistant Premium Membership for ongoing training, coaching, and community.

LEADER ASSISTANT LIVE EVENTS

Check out our constantly updated schedule of events for admins and assistants at LeaderAssistantLive.com.

SUBSCRIBE

Subscribe to The Leader Assistant Podcast so you don’t miss new episodes!

You can find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pandora, and Stitcher.

Join my email list here if you want to get an email when a new episode goes live.

LEAVE A REVIEW

If you’re enjoying the podcast, please take 2 minutes to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Each review helps me stay motivated to keep the show going!

–––

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Diana Brandl is a longtime C-Suite assistant, and host of the Executive Office Insights podcast.

In this spotlight episode, Diana speaks with Donata Boston – former Madonna family assistant.

CONNECT WITH DONATA

• Donata on LinkedIn
• Donata’s Website

ABOUT DONATA

Donata Boston is a lifestyle solutions specialist renowned for her work with top leaders across diverse industries. With connections to elite individuals and opportunities, Donata identified the need for a more humane, comprehensive approach in traditional talent acquisition. She emphasizes intrinsic values—vision, motivation, calling, and goals—to facilitate intentional, mutually beneficial connections.

Her services, including unique talent placement, onboarding support, career development, and strategic networking, focus on the success of high-value individuals inspired to make a difference, offering a modern take on lifestyle solutions.

ABOUT EXECUTIVE OFFICE INSIGHTS with DIANA BRANDL

Executive Office Insights is a podcast for executive support professionals hosted by Diana Brandl – an accomplished trainer, consultant, coach, and former C-suite senior executive assistant with nearly two decades of experience at renowned international companies, this podcast dives deep into the evolving world of executive excellence.

Diana explores the critical themes shaping the modern workplace, including leadership dynamics, digital transformation, AI, and the future of work. Featuring insightful conversations with a diverse range of German and English-speaking experts, each episode equips listeners with actionable insights and strategies to thrive in the ever-changing executive office landscape.

–––

THE LEADER ASSISTANT ACADEMY

Enroll in the on-demand, AI-powered professional development resource for Leader Assistants who want to level up. Learn more -> The Leader Assistant Academy.

THE LEADER ASSISTANT BOOK

Download the first 3 chapters of The Leader Assistant: Four Pillars of Game-Changing Assistant for FREE here or buy it on Amazon and listen to the audiobook on Audible. Also, check out the companion study guide, The Leader Assistant Workbook, to dig deeper.

JOIN THE FREE COMMUNITY

Join the Leader Assistant Global Community for bonus content, job opportunities, and to network with other assistants who are committed to becoming leaders!

THE LEADER ASSISTANT PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP

To learn more about how you can join growth-minded Leader Assistants, check out our Leader Assistant Premium Membership for ongoing training, coaching, and community.

LEADER ASSISTANT LIVE EVENTS

Check out our constantly updated schedule of events for admins and assistants at LeaderAssistantLive.com.

SUBSCRIBE

Subscribe to The Leader Assistant Podcast so you don’t miss new episodes!

You can find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pandora, and Stitcher.

Join my email list here if you want to get an email when a new episode goes live.

LEAVE A REVIEW

If you’re enjoying the podcast, please take 2 minutes to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Each review helps me stay motivated to keep the show going!

–––

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Speaker: 00:46
Today I’m excited to spotlight my friend Diana Brandl’s show called Executive Office Insights. Diana has had some amazing interviews over the years on her show, which I will link to in the show notes, so be sure to check that out.

Speaker 1: 01:02
In the meantime, enjoy this featured episode from Diana’s show – leaderassistant.com/367.

Speaker 5: 01:34
Former EA to Madonna, she also held positions such as chief of staff, grant manager, head of people, and she has been serving in various industries such as music, entertainment, fashion, and finance. So uh the wonderful Donata Boston is my guest today, and every time I talk to her, I’m always fascinated by the things she really puts into perspective, especially those of us transforming and transitioning in our careers. So um she held various functions and now she’s a successful entrepreneur. Um she is a matchmaker, she works in recruiting, she works with a lot of talents, and she brings people together, and um she does it in such a wonderful way because she is a people manager. You can really tell that from the way she speaks, and it’s wonderful to have her here as an extraordinary role model out there for our industry. So um I wish you lots of fun listening and watching this episode.

Speaker 4: 02:34
Welcome everybody to the podcast of Future Assistant, a podcast full of inspiration, encouragement, and empowerment for administrative professionals. Tune in, level up, and get motivated by the stories you are about to hear.

Speaker 5: 02:59
I know a lot of you have been waiting for it, and um, me too, honestly, because I wanted to bring you that special guest who’s gonna be part of the show today. And there’s so much to tell you about the wonderful Donata, and yes, I’m pronouncing it in a very German way because there’s a reason why I pronounce it this way. But first of all, a warm welcome to Donata Boston. Hello to you, my dear.

Speaker 2: 03:22
Hi, hi, I’m so excited to be here. So let us so nice to it’s so nice to connect with you again.

Speaker 3: 03:29
I just wanted to let you know it’s been a while. I know we’ve been sort of keeping in touch from a distance, but it’s nice to finally be back together and have this conversation.

Speaker 5: 03:39
Totally. And I remember when we had the live event and we had so many assistants over from Austria, Switzerland, all over Europe, uh, that they have been enjoying the talk so much. So you were so long on my list to have you at the podcast here, and I’m so happy that we finally make it happen. And maybe a few people were actually wondering why I kind of pronounced the name Donata in a very German way, because there is some history. Do you want to share the history with us?

Speaker 3: 04:06
Yeah, so actually, my dad is German and my mom is Haitian. So I grew up in Germany for most of my childhood. So I was born in the US and we stayed here until I was about three years old. But my whole schooling and my whole really formative years were spent in Hamburg, Germany. So that’s where so I speak German, and um, that’s really where my roots are. That’s really where what I identify with most is that German heritage and those years spent in Germany. So I’m so excited to be here and to talk to this audience.

Speaker 5: 04:41
Absolutely. And uh I mean, Hamburg is really a special city. I always enjoy going there whenever I have a client there. I’m actually going there twice this year. So I will think of you for sure. Um let’s see, let’s see how it goes because Hamburg is always tricky when it comes to the weather, probably, as you know. You get lucky or not.

Speaker 3: 05:01
Yes, that’s right. And you know what? It’s so interesting because I live in in Los Angeles now, right? Where it’s the sun’s always shining, and there’s a part of my soul that just craves the dark skies, craves the rain, because I’m so familiar with it. So when it rains here, it just feels like home.

Speaker 5: 05:18
It’s kind of wild. Yeah, we can help you with that. I’m happy to send some rain awards a lot, what we have right now. So happy to treat the the LA sun. We can do a house swap. Absolutely. But do is LA your home now? I mean, is everything there when you feel this is the roots now?

Speaker 3: 05:37
It’s so interesting. You know, I just really consider myself a butterfly a little bit. I feel like um the more I’m in motion, the more I get to change sceneries, meet people from all walks of life, the more I feel alive. Um, Los Angeles is definitely my um sort of center of gravity at this point because my kids are going to school here. I have kids that are now six and seven. So it’s sort of more challenging to be that nomadic as you are. Um, but um I would say Los Angeles has provided me with some incredible human connections that I value a lot and that I’ve built my business on now. That being said, I always get really energized and inspired by traveling and by exploring different regions in the US and all and obviously worldwide in Europe in particular.

Speaker 5: 06:35
We need to get you back to Europe for sure. I mean, we need to make plans. Yes. That would be so awesome to be here with you, actually.

Speaker 3: 06:43
Um, you know, we’ve talked about this in the past, right? Yeah. Absolutely.

Speaker 5: 06:47
So, you know, everyone listening, we need to get her here. So um make sure you connect, of course, with Samata. But uh, first of all, we have so much to to talk about. Um we are actually right now uh ending May. Um and this podcast goes out you know quite fast. So uh once it is live is gonna be June. So kind of a halftime 2024. So, how would you say how’s 2024 treating you so far?

Speaker 3: 07:16
So 2024 and even like the years prior to that have been have felt like a huge transition point in my life and in my career. I think a lot of people have felt this way. A lot of it stems from the pandemic for sure. I think there’s just something that happened over the last four years to question a little bit around, you know, what why am I here? What am I here to do? What is my calling? People have been asking more and more of those questions and trying to connect back to their core, to really understanding who they are, how they operate, what makes them different, what I call their your secret sauce, right? It like what is it that you are uniquely designed to bring to this world? And I think especially when you are more of that service, you have that service mentality when you’ve been an assistant, when you’ve been a chief of staff, when you’ve been in that world for so long, you kind of give away so much of who you are to be of service to somebody else, that um there just comes this moment of self-reflection of like, wait a minute, what am what do I want out of life? And how can I start intentionally designing my life and my career around who I am at the at the soul level, right? And so that I’ve been a part of that where it’s been, I’ve always been really into spirituality and self-reflection. But um, as times have evolved and circumstance our circumstances have changed so much, there was this pivotal point over the last, I think, three years where it was like, okay, it’s go time. Like you’ve been thinking and you’ve been talking so much about wanting to be a coach, about wanting to be of service to other assistants and really guiding them through the these transition points that you’re experiencing, that you’ve experienced in the past, it’s now or never. And so I’ve really started betting on myself and saying it’s it’s time to it’s time to start making that transition. And it’s been incredible, an incredible experience. And I think a lot of what we’re going to talk about today is really how we navigate these moments of transitions together.

Speaker 5: 11:01
Totally. So, you know, looking into the daily routines of Donata, I mean, when you go into reflection mode, is it on a daily base as well? Do you scribble down things in a journal? Or do you have like a mind map or a vision board? Or do you sit down with yourself once a week? Just uh let us know how you do it that you you really have commitment with yourself.

Speaker 3: 11:23
Yeah, that’s such a good question because and I get that question a lot because people always want to know what’s the hack, right? Like, how do you get to connect back to your intuition, to disconnect from the noise, from the external need for validation to sort of come back to what do I want? Um, I mean, I dabble in all of it, to be honest. I’m very exploratory, very curious, and very open to a lot of things. So I’ve done, I do a lot of nature walks. Actually, nature really centers me so much, especially when you have a crazy wild household like I do with kids, with animals, grandmas here. You know, like there’s just so much that comes at you every day. I really need those, even if it’s like 20 minutes, I need these to consistently have some time to just be on my own and to be in silence. Sometimes I’ll listen to a walking meditation or a podcast, but for the most part, really being it, right? So, but for the most part, I recognize there’s so much information coming at me that moments of silence, and it’s so simple, right? Nature and silence, it’s free. It’s literally available for the most part every day. Just taking that time though and being consistent with it to just say, okay, wait a minute. A moment of just me with me and creating the space to even hear what’s going on underneath the surface outside of constantly performing. That to me is the precious time. Yeah, on top of that, I do, I mean, there’s this program that I do here. My neighbor actually created it. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Lacey Phillips. Um, she has another podcast that is all about manifesting the life of your dreams, manifesting your career. She has a platform that I utilize to do meditations, but it’s more active self-reflection and working on specific blocks that you recognize in the flow of life and the flow of your career. I love that. I’ve dabbled in plant medicine as well. I’ve done ayahuasca ceremonies, I’ve done all sorts of different alternative options just to see what’s out there because I love to provide those resources to the people that I coach, to the people that I help navigate their own um trajectories.

Speaker 5: 13:40
Yeah, and we need to make sure that we put a few information in the show the show notes, you know. Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2: 13:46
We love to share.

Speaker 5: 13:47
Yeah. Absolutely. And also I really want to recommend because you mentioned that the the walking meditation, what I also love to do, there’s a lady called Jell Hamilton out there. Um, the meditation minis. You’re awesome to find this out because uh I will also make sure to put in the show notes. I love her. Yeah, she has a great voice, and it’s shorter, you know, meditations and some walking meditations there as well. So I definitely have to send you the link over.

Speaker 3: 14:12
I will say, I will say one thing to be honest. Let me just find uh my pen. Um, I will say that for a lot of us, we think that it’s and I was one of them, right? When you hear about meditation at first, and if you’ve never done it before, or even if you’ve started doing it and you just start getting this voice that tells you you’re not doing it right or you’re not doing enough, or it’s it’s really just about taking the time to disconnect. So if you don’t have access to these meditations, even though everything’s available now, I really urge everyone to even just take the time to sit in the discomfort of silence. You won’t believe how valuable that can be. And you won’t believe how much actually happens in the nothingness, right? Because that is such gold nowadays because we’re running so fast, so much going on that you just do it consistently. Don’t expect to do that and then wake up and be like, okay, what’s going on? Has anything changed? It’s not about the outcome, it’s about just showing up for yourself and then seeing how these micro changes start happening in your life. Yes. Um, it’s subtle, it’s subtle at first. It can be big, but it can be subtle too. So just keep at it.

Speaker 5: 15:36
Very good advice. And I think it’s a good reminder for those of us listening to our conversation who are always running and the hamster wheel never stops. And I’m one of them. So um, yes, and exactly nature is really one of my greatest gifts. Um, walking, sitting out there listening to the nature or listening in the nature to a podcast. So very happy to see that you have some similar routines because they’re really, really helpful for me. So um tell us about actually a little bit about yourself. I mean, um, Donata, the German history, we heard about it, and then all of a sudden there’s a last name called Boston. Do you actually have any connections with Boston? Or it’s just, you know, the name that obviously is a part of your family. But you know, what else do you want to share with us before we dive a little bit into your career?

Speaker 3: 16:28
Yeah, so um my um my maiden name was actually Martin, which is like very the most standard German but also international name ever. Um I so I grew up in Germany, loved my childhood. Like looking back, probably not you don’t know how to appreciate things when you’re in it, but looking back, I had sort of a really idyllic childhood with a very international family and background. So we traveled a lot. We’ve been, we ex we, my parents exposed us to a lot of different cultures, a lot of different um yeah, types of people and environments at an early age. My mom was a flight attendant, so we were very mobile. Um, but I had these really strong German roots and then went to French school as well. So my mom is a French speaker. So by nature, the the picture of my childhood was just injected with many cultures, many different um types of people that surrounded us. And I think that really informed sort of the trajectory that I took with my career, being really open to just picking up and leaving and trying new things, just always very curious. And I think that really stemmed from the way we were raised as kids. Um, I started studying in Paris after I graduated high school, just because it was the natural um extension to my French schooling in high school. Um, went to the Sorbonne in Paris and studied international business. And again, met so many wonderful people from all types of different backgrounds until once I started working in Paris and realized things were just slow moving, right? You’re fresh out of college, the French do things, tend to be just like very um mindful of work-life balance. But when you’re young and you have this fire in your belly, you sort of want to go out there and you want to prove yourself and you want to see what’s available. Everyone around me was urging me to move to the US because I had my uh the passport, right? I had the citizenship, and it was the last thing on my list, to be honest. I just felt so European at my core. But then it came to a point where I was like, you know what? Just let’s just see what happens. Just go out there, see what happens. Paris is not going anywhere, you could always come back. And so I went to New York. My sister was living there at the time and just started exploring again. It was, it happened to be 2008, so there were no jobs available, and especially for someone who was just so fresh out of college and just had dabbled in event planning. There wasn’t really much of substance available to me. So it was one of the big transition points, right, of my life, where it was like, wait, what am I doing here? And also, what urged you to just pick up and leave and move to New York? It was almost like I was guided by something greater than myself that was just like, just go, just give it a shot, just try it out. And once I got there, and after looking for a couple of months, I just really fell into the job of a family assistant slash nanny for Madonna. And yeah, just this whole new world opened up that, and I heard I’m sure you hear that a lot. I certainly do now that I’m, you know, uh I do recruiting, is that for the most part, it chooses you. You know, it’s the type of role that it’s really hard to design uh entering this career. Um it it sort of chooses you, and then it’s a matter of can you, do you have the chops? And are you designed to do what it takes to make that career happen for yourself? And that was very much my story as well.

Speaker 5: 20:26
And you know, you know, working for such an icon at an early stage in your career, I mean, was there are are there still the finch me moments in in your life where you’re feeling like they found the opportunity?

Speaker 3: 20:39
You know, it’s so interesting because looking back, I was just happy to have a job. You know, at that point it was, yes, it was very surreal and obviously not something I had on my bingo card, but I was just so grateful to have somebody, anybody, uh, willing to bet on me and willing to give me a chance. And even throughout working in this profession, and maybe that is part of um the reason for my success, is that it never really dawned on me. I never made the connection of who my bosses were to the public and who they who they were to me and and what I needed to focus on to be good at my job, which is so different, right? Like you can’t really get sucked into the the noise of what they what their profession is and what you are there to do to really serve at the highest level, which is would which has to stem from a level of humanity. Like you can’t get distracted by the performance of it all, and like no pun intended in this case, but it’s all it’s all very performative at the end. And what happens behind closed doors is just so different, and what the needs are there are so different that unless you’re really connected to who you are and how you can be of service to that, you’re not going to be performing at the highest level. And so, for whatever reason, right? Like I don’t know. We my sister actually started working with me as well. same household for we we kept asking ourselves what is it how come it the the the the the glitz of it was sort of the last thing on the list that that mattered in the job it’s obviously very um it’s a novelty right to go on the private jets and to go to the concerts and to to live that that that big life as an adjacent partner but it it truly isn’t what makes the job special what makes the job special for me was always the people it was always it was the the family making sure everyone was taken care of making sure that the the team dynamic was operating as at its highest there’s you put so many hours in you put so much effort into it that unless you’re connected to something greater than yourself you just can’t it’s not sustainable totally it wouldn’t have been for me you know absolutely yeah and um and that is so important that we talk about these things because um there’s always a certain image out there that you feel like oh I want to work for certain people I want to work in a certain business right so that’s why I’m always so happy to bring so many wonderful role models and experts to the podcast who give some some more information about it.

Speaker 5: 23:34
We had you know um a celebrity recruiter um last year um who gave away so many information about you know it’s not always a good life out there not always the fancy stuff and putting in a lot of hours you mentioned it before I think it’s it’s really um important to see the realistic um job profile behind um but still I mean I can only imagine how many wonderful takeaways you you get out of the role um working for a Madonna and the family behind what what do you see was my two to three learnings out of this time I think so I and I reflect on this a lot in what I do now.

Speaker 3: 24:13
I think the biggest uh gift and and unfortunately I wasn’t really guided at the time right I kind of fell into it and I was kind of winging it for so long in my career. And I understood that I had something special that was needed and that I was able to enjoy this type of work and that I was doing it so genuinely and authentically from a place of service, which always kept me going. But it wasn’t until recently that I really realized the the gold that was there. And that’s something that I like to share with the candidates that I work with now who are still in these types of roles is look around. You are in contact with the greatest leaders of our time there’s so much that you get to draw from the way they move the way they think the way they operate operate you have the front row seat to brill a brilliant mind right whoever we are and whoever we’re supporting and in whatever industry they are you’re working with brilliant minds pay attention right like as much as you’re there to get your job done always pay attention to what’s going on around you witness the patterns because success always leaves clues and if we are awake to our experience and not so much focus on what’s not working and you know how how difficult certain days can be and that can re it can really wear on you. I’m not disregarding that but outside of that if you connect to the goal that is there and the fact that you are basically getting paid to learn from the best of the best there’s just another level of motivation that ignites inside of you. And I’ve always had like I said this curious mind. So I was always paying attention to okay what is happening? How are people how are we operating here at the highest level and how can I now bring that into my next experience whenever that comes the other thing is you get hopefully you are in an industry that speaks to you. And so you also get a lot of industry knowledge again you’re getting paid for training in how does the music world operate outside of the person that I work with what who are who are the agents who are the managers what do they do exactly who are the publicists and who are the other artists around me and how do do they operate? And there’s just so much that you can pick up on that and you wouldn’t believe how much of that will serve you later on even though it’s hard to see it in the moment. I just read this incredible book I don’t know if you’ve read it called Range by David Epstein and it speaks on how generalists can actually be the most innovative disruptors and specialists because they’re exposed to so many different industries and environments and they have a collection of data that is so much greater than when you just stay on this one track. And I believe that for myself and I think for most assistants we are these generalists right we are willing to do whatever it takes we’re we’re typically not necessarily specifically interested in it in one industry. We’re just there to be of service but even if you are if you already know that you love the music industry for instance and you fall into it you are now operating at the highest level supporting someone who has all the doors open and you get to see things that most people don’t right everything that’s happening behind the scenes. So again paying attention to that taking note making sure that you understand you are sitting on a gold mine wherever you are and none of it will be wasted along the way once you start deciding what you are specifically designed to do all of it will matter. All of it will play a role and then for me it was always about the team dynamics. It was always about really understanding okay how do teams operate at the highest level? Who are the special ones who what makes really incredible talent? Who gets acknowledged for what they’re doing? What kind of a mindset does it take to really operate at the highest level and to be recognized for the effort that is put into it. So I always really valued talking to my colleagues understanding what they were struggling with, understanding what the needs are in these like really high level support structures and obviously that’s like incredibly useful now because I helped design these support structures for the people I used to work with for absolutely it prepared you so well right from the beginning on and then which is also what I find very interesting about your bio is that you transferred that into a chief of staff role and we now read a lot about the chief of staff and how you get there from an EA role.

Speaker 5: 29:30
So maybe you want to share a little bit of your advice here what was different when you became a chief of staff um was there a different setting was there a different mindset from from you when you transformed into this role because um I think there’s a lot of you know different opinions out there when we look into LinkedIn and some articles around um chief of staff some of them say it’s super easy to get into this role coming out of the EA role other people say oh no you need to be a very um senior citizen to get into this role and you actually need to have the right you know equipment um and we we do have different systems here over in Europe as well. So when I look into chief of staff’s roles out there in major corporations they’re sometimes lawyers you know totally different background so I think every company probably also what you see with your clients at the moment is designing the role a little bit different but how did you 100% how did you feel when you made the transition yeah again I think I have a little bit of a forestrum story I feel like you know I was never really fully aware of what was happening.

Speaker 3: 30:35
I was just like oh yeah this sounds great let me just do it I think I and I don’t even want to attribute it to luck only I think it was this naive willingness to just go for it. I was always game I was always willing to say yep let me try it out you know and and sure there are these moments of the imposter syndrome kicks in and you’re like wait am I equipped for this but that was really quite um it wasn’t very loud in in this in this like these per first formative years of my career it was more about the curiosity really took over and I wanted to learn so much of what I was capable of. And if anybody was willing to give me a chance I was willing to show up and at least give it a try. And that’s the other thing I think we’re so we want to do such a good job when we’re assistants, right? We are just such people pleasers and we’re such perfectionists for the most part and we have to recognize we know that just holds you back oftentimes when it comes to just trying something different trying something new stretching way beyond what you’re accustomed to. So when I did the transition I went from the entertainment world into finance which is such a different environment for some reason my boss my new um sort of principal at that time had very similar character traits to my previous boss and so I found myself sort of transitioning with ease into this new environment. But as chief of staff what I recognized is I grew such such a strong level of self-confidence coming out of the Madonna job because I’m like look at me like I rocked this like I did I did what I needed to do and I really enjoyed the process. I think there was something really empowering knowing that I that I lasted so long in that job because it is a strenuous environment when you’re there 247 and you’re you’re you know you’re connected to everything that’s going on and it’s it’s every day to then coming into a role that was more of an office job already felt like I can do this in my sleep and and then also feeling that empowered from that experience I think I it’s it’s so crazy how much how you feel about yourself dictates how you’re received by others. It’s so it’s so um it’s so incredible to see when we connect deeply to who we are and to what our superpower is and in that moment that was really the case for me because I felt I was feeling myself right you people see you really by the way you present yourself. And so in that moment I think um they were looking for somebody who had a different type of background they weren’t looking for someone who was in the financial world and when they met me with my sort of very diverse um upbringing the um international piece I think was really important. But then also the fact that yeah I came from a background that felt a little bit glitzy and they wanted to attract that into their office it just felt like the right match and then it was more of a matter of can I show up and can I be um can I be game can I be really open to receiving all the information that was coming at me I learned things I’d never been exposed to before or had interest in right like the financial world is such a different beast and I just absorbed it like a sponge. You know I just was so excited to learn about how the private equity world operates who are the players what are the terms that they’re using and I just remember taking notes of everything and just learning on the fly and it was just incredible and I can only imagine how this also helped you massively to go into entrepreneurship right because absolutely the finance world you know this is something that we as entrepreneurs of course need to consider in so many directions.

Speaker 5: 34:57
So tell us a little bit you know when was this inner voice all of a sudden there that you felt now is time to do my own thing I want to I want to be my own CEO.

Speaker 3: 35:06
So there there are many like chapters in between that experience and where I am today but what I would say is um it for me the the true con true confidence can only be ignited in um the experience it’s really hard to have a connection to what you’re capable of simply by self-reflecting right or or to just be in the in the conceptual oh I could do this I could do that until you get your feet your and your hands in to the dirt and you start really seeing what you’re capable of you’re not going to fully feel connected to that confidence. You could talk yourself into it but it’s more a matter of yeah go in there like be be fully in the game and show up and pay attention and be curious. So from being in private equity I got pregnant actually like I was in there for seven years. So did that for extensive period of time. And what I want to say about the chief of staff role too is there’s so many different versions of that title right and so it really depends what it is that the specific like you said the specific industry or the specific company that you’re looking at is looking for there’s no no two chief of staff roles are the same. In my situation it just happened that they were looking for somebody who had my level of experience and somebody who was willing to really focus on the employee um development side of things which is what I love to do more than anything. Oh my God. It’s like and and this is where I recognize wow this is really something and this matters I think oftentimes we’re good at something and we sort of take it for granted but my love for people was what really was the right fit here. So if you’re looking for to explore a chief of staff role just to go back to your previous question I think it’s really it’s even more so important to understand what your secret sauce is, what your superpower is and to find the type of chief of staff role that really caters to that, that really is in need of that. Because if you’re a great executive assistant, I don’t care if you’ve been a senior executive assistant or if you’ve just done it for a certain number of time, you’ve got it down you’ve got the basics down. So the natural progression is just to get into higher level of leadership where you have a seat at the table to me that’s what chief of staff meant is where my voice is really heard and recognized and I’m not simply executing upon tasks that are sort of given to me I get to now contribute. I have a voice I have a point of view I have a perspective to share and when it came to the employees I always had an I always had an opinion I always had a way to innovate the way we connected to each other. So that was natural to me. What is that for you? What is it that keeps you up at night? What is it that really speaks to your soul that you feel like you would do whether you got paid or not this is like what makes you feel so alive and motivated. Once you connect to that and you find the type of role that A needs your basic skill sets but then also needs your voice in the matter because you have an opinion that’s where I think a chief of staff role or any other title that you can imagine in that like it could be a director of operations could be anything right these roles are just waiting for somebody like you who is just moved by the topic at hand. So when it came to my transition point I moved so I got pregnant uh which didn’t mean I had to stop working obviously but I think for me it just became a moment of deep deep self-reflection and another pivotal transition point where I recognized wow the I was operating at such a high velocity for so many years and never took a break it was time for me to just like go inward go inward and slow down and be really present. I knew the type of matter that I wanted to be was a very present one but I also knew that I that work really mattered to me right and like having my own um self-expression in work mattered to me a lot. So I just took a little bit of time once I had my baby to figure out okay what what’s the balance right I had I never had balance I was all into my career and um it took me a little bit of time to figure out okay I could like dip my toes back in. I felt like the chapter of private equity was sort of closing for me. I didn’t know that I could do it any other way but all in and that wasn’t possible with the baby the way I viewed motherhood. So I started working as a brand manager for a in a fashion uh company and just opened up their US branch and sort of designed the team designed the office and did what I knew to do best. Felt like a bit of a step backwards but it really felt so in line with what I wanted to explore like how does it feel to just do it on my own there was no scratch right and build it up from scratch exactly just taking all of the information that I’ve learned now seeing people operate at the highest level and now designing my own team and then also scaling back on the amount of hours it was more of a job where I got to go in and clock out. I didn’t take any of it home you know what I mean which was new to me to everything was always I was living and breathing the my previous roles 247. So this felt like a nice little balance. And I just want to also encourage everyone listening if you’re going through big transition points in your life and you feel like you have to show up in a different way failure is the biggest lesson the biggest lessons that I’ve learned came from quote unquote failure or quote unquote scaling back or taking steps backwards. It can feel like it’s not our progression is not linear especially when you’re a generalist especially when you’re curious about a million different things give yourself permission to explore everything that gets your attention because I think this idea that things have to be linear and that if you start something you have to see it through and grit and determination I think that’s wonderful. Those are wonderful qualities but not at the expense of your soul. Absolutely not at the expense of your intuition telling you this doesn’t feel right. Like it’s great on paper. And I often say the people who love us the most tend to give us the worst advice when it comes to taking risks and jumping off cliffs. And not doing things traditionally, right? Like my mom, like you turn to the people who’ve known you the longest, they’re not going to tell you quit. You have to really be resourceful. Know who your advisors are in the moments of transitions and of taking risks. And most importantly, listen to your gut. Like, listen to your intuition. Because I can’t tell you how many times that has served me when I could have stayed much longer. The private equity job is a perfect example. I could have said, no, this is my bread and butter. This is, I’m so lucky to have this job. But then it would have come to at the expense of who I wanted to be as a mom, who I authentically want to be in my life and in my business. So that transition, yes, to in a way felt very different. It felt so like there was so much space, there was so much time all of a sudden to do things that mattered to me. And this is when I started also doing my um yoga teacher training. And I got into more of that spiritual um self-discovery track, right? That to figure out, okay, who am I at my core? I’ve given given so much of me to others. Now it’s time to give back to myself because I won’t be able to show up as a great mother unless I figure out who I am, right? And I’m I’m authentically showing up.

Speaker 5: 43:38
So you really stayed, you know, true to your values, I believe, and then transition as well. Like the way you view motherhood, as you said before, which I love that you pointed this out because I know we do have a lot of listeners here who have similar situations, like there’s a career, there’s a family, there’s you know, voluntary, uh voluntary projects, there’s passion projects. Um, where do I belong right now? Right. Um so you spoke about advisors, and I I keep wondering who were your advisors on on this journey, especially then going into your own, you know, uh business and having the consultancy and everything, and you know, uh opening up into some new fields, right? Who’s who’s your sounding board?

Speaker 3: 44:24
Yeah, so it’s it I have I have my it’s it’s sort of like my committee of advisors for different aspects of career. So I think for me it’s been really important to understand if I want to, like I said, jump off a cliff and take risk and go off and do my own thing. Who are the people who’ve either done this before or who are um risk takers in general and who are willing to give me advice that’s not going to that are can be devil’s advocate but are not going to hold me back from taking the risk? I wouldn’t go to my mom with all due respect. She’s here in this house.

Speaker 2: 45:05
But like I wouldn’t, you know what I mean? Because I knew you’re gonna keep you safe. She was going to want to keep me. She’s going to be like, what are you talking about? This is so my mom. So yes.

Speaker 5: 45:15
And I was the second child going into entrepreneurship after my brother. So she was like, Yeah, tell me about what went wrong. What went wrong? She said, I said, everything was wrong. That’s right.

Speaker 3: 45:26
That’s right. But like in those moments, we have to, we have like, I’m I’m I’m able to speak about this now with such confidence. But the amount of times that I was questioning myself, it’s not, it’s not an easy path. Like, even like that transition point into brand management, felt like, oh my God, like, is this am I doing the right move? Had I gone to the people who just want to keep me safe and cozy and who don’t recognize what my soul was yearning for, you can’t expect other people around you to understand what your soul is calling for. Your calling is your calling for a reason, right? So we have to sort of disconnect from that noise and from the need for external validation and stay true to ourselves. Is that what was that true to you as well in that moment? Absolutely, absolutely. And so, and so that’s that is also the best way that we can start. People ask me all the time, how do I reconnect to my intuition? I feel like it’s been there. I remember as a child, I was so intuitive, but I’ve lost it. But it’s always there. The thing is, you have to start listening to it. You have to start taking baby steps into taking this exquisite risk of, I’m gonna bet on myself. This just seems to be the right answer. Let me just try it and not make it such a big deal. You can always pivot. There’s always an opportunity to pivot. There’s no, it’s not the final answer, right? So, from brand management, I went into becoming head of people for a step for a tech startup in Miami, which was like the dream, right? Like being in charge of the people. I learned so much about the onboarding process at the highest level. Tech startups, they don’t mess around. Like when it comes to onboarding, there’s they’re so cutting edge and so systematized in the way they approach um, yeah, just talent acquisition. And then the like they take into account the full life cycle of the employee from the moment they start recruiting to the exit of an employee, everything is so thorough and thought through and efficient. So I got exposed to that, and it was like my mind was blown. Like the amount of efficiency, and I want to speak about AI a little bit here, too, is AI is such an incredible tool that we can utilize wherever we are to um support us in injecting way more humanity into the businesses that we’re in. And that is at the foundation of everything I do. It’s all about bringing more humanity into business, connecting to humans, taking the time to dig a little bit deeper. And so now I’m this luxury lifestyle support consultant to the people that I use to support. And the reason why I can do things on a very modern level is that I’m not afraid of it. I utilize it to create the efficiency that I need so I can show up on a human level and really connect to the talent, really understand how my clients operate and be able to make incredible, fruitful, long-term connections.

Speaker 5: 48:46
What’s your favorite tool, actually? What are you using? Give us some examples where you feel like, oh, this is my number one go-to.

Speaker 3: 48:54
I mean, I think anything I would tell people anything that feels like a distraction from what you’re truly great at, if there is a tool out there that can systematize it for you, use it and create a really strong foundation for yourself so that you don’t get stuck in the weeds of, I mean, even just from utilizing um the tools to pay your bills, to um do your accounting, to like all the administrative stuff, which ironically, I want to do none of that for myself. Like I want it to either be, I want it to be handed off to someone, it’s just not where I shine. I can do it in my sleep. It just becomes an energy drain. And I want to stay stuck in my zone of genius, which is the human connection. It’s really about getting to understand how people function. So from um utilizing tools like, I mean, Airtable is a great one, right? Like, I don’t know that we can survive without it. Um, I utilize Chat GPT for anything that has to do with copywriting. I always give it my spin. I always edit it according to my tone. I think it can only do so much. But to be able to summarize things, the using otter, and I think there’s a new platform actually that takes notes for all of my um candidate interviews and being able to really draft up these reports that you used to take forever. Um, I use video recording for um and video interviews for scouting new talents, making sure that I don’t spend all day on Zoom meeting people that may not be the right fit. So being able to systematize that and to be able to pick out from the people I interview over a video, hey, I want to meet you. Like you sound amazing. So anything that can contribute to that efficiency where I get to do what I love and what I’m really, really great at 80% of the time. To me, that is what opens up doors, what brings in more opportunity, because you’re really able to shine and to attract those opportunities into your orbit.

Speaker 5: 51:03
Absolutely. It’s wonderful. And thank you so much for bringing this up because everyone speaks about AI and how we can integrate it into trial businesses and private life. So very happy to see that you use it as well. I’m a big fan.

Speaker 3: 51:14
Yeah, what is it? What do you use for like your podcasts or anything like that? What are the tools that you use the most?

Speaker 5: 51:20
For the podcast, I don’t use anything at all because I’m uh I’m having my expert, Sebastian, who’s taking care of everything. Amazing. But of course, I’m a big fan of ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, um, people, people write, you know, all these wonderful things. I have my Calendly, people can, you know, easily make appointments with me. There’s AI behind, as we know, tons of wonderful things out there. So um especially interesting entrepreneurs, we can’t use them very nicely. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 51:49
Absolutely. I think that the threat of AI is so interesting because at first you feel like, oh, everyone’s becoming disposable, right? And the truth is, I think what it’s highlighting for me is that never before has it been so important to leverage our human connections, to leverage the actual networking that you’re doing outside of even social media, which is a great tool to cast a white net and meet a lot of people and to share what you’re about. But for me, it’s all been in the networking. That’s another thing. Wherever you are right now, whatever job you hold, don’t like it’s all about your connections. Create really strong connections wherever you are, no matter how you’re feeling about your job, whether you’re loving it or it’s really, it’s really a struggle. Look around who are your people in this space that you’re in right now, because I guarantee you, you will need those. And you’re this incredible connector, I’ve noticed. Like we’re very similar this way, where for me, I’m a master connector. Nothing brings me more joy than to bring people together. I’m all about connecting exceptional, exceptional humans at every level from the recruiting, but also from all the different solutions that we can provide to our clients, right? When a client comes in, no matter what their needs are, whether they need a realtor, a new dentist, or they need a great executive assistant, a housekeeper, whatever it may be, there’s a solution for all of it. And my motto is always no man left behind. So I’m going to automatically tap into all of my resources and all the people surrounding me, as I’ve done with you, um, of saying, hey, do you know anyone that can solve this problem for my client?

Speaker 5: 53:40
Right. It’s really indeed another thing that is similar, right? And that we both have a common. Yeah. Because, you know, um, connecting people and and growing together, that’s that’s really, really wonderful. And um I love to see when there’s new output, you know, uh developing out of the connections I I made. And I know you’re all the same.

Speaker 3: 53:59
So the thing is with and the thing with networking, real quick too, is it’s not networking for networking’s sake. There’s something really um off-putting, especially when you live in a city like LA, um, where people are just it’s very much about being self-serving. And you can tell when somebody is networking just for the sake of having another name in their LinkedIn connection, or if people are doing it genuinely because they’re connecting with you, because they’re present with you. And so understanding who you are in this process of career transition from a generalist to a specialist, and everything that’s revealed to you about what your secret sauce is is also an indication of who your people are, who are the people around you who operate at the same level. And for me, it’s all about the people who are high, what I call them high-quality humans. It’s the people who are really connected to something greater than themselves. And I don’t mean this in a like religious or spiritual way necessarily, but it’s more so I’m here for a reason. You can tell when somebody has that sparkle in their eyes and they’re like, whatever it is that I’m doing, even if I’m bussing tables or if I’m, you know, Madonna’s assistant, I’m doing it at the highest level. I’m fully connected to what I’m doing and I’m and I’m going to do it, my, give it my everything. Those are the people, both on the client side and on the talent side, that I love to connect with each other. Because the truth is we need each other. We talk about networking. It’s all about connecting the right humans with each other. And what is possible from there is pure magic. I see it over and over again. And I couldn’t have built my own business if it wasn’t for my collaborations and my network and being able to get really creative, working with people on their projects, then working with me on mine, and being able to just connect to that joint mission that we have, right?

Speaker 5: 56:03
And it seems that there’s a mission for you out there, Donato, because uh, as you were telling, one of the functions was ahead of people, right? Yeah. So there was always a connection with people, with humans. Always. Um, so that this is this is really your mission out there, right? So um Yeah. So tell us about the work you do right now. We we heard a little bit about being a coach, being a consultant, being a recruiter. So tell us a little bit about the consultancy you have and the way you work and who are your clients actually.

Speaker 3: 56:35
Yeah, so when I I think really that that last piece was that head of people role for the the tech startup, when I realized how much I really loved talking to talent, how I loved making the connection and how good I was, to be honest. Like I just there’s something about the recruiting world that felt really stale to me. Um, always, even at a younger age, when I did my own transitions and I worked with agencies, it just felt like there wasn’t real candidate advocacy that was there. You know, it was all about the clients and like pleasing the clients and making sure that the commission seemed to be a really big piece of it, versus really being present, really thinking through the greater career trajectory and how one opportunity can serve the next. Also, when we go through career transitions, we’re in a very vulnerable place, right? We talked about this imposter syndrome, the fear of making the right choices, the right moves. So for me, being able to be the person that I didn’t have at the time when I was navigating these transitions felt like such a calling. And, you know, oftentimes they say we create our purpose from our pain. And it’s because we want to become the people we wish we had when we were going through similar situations. So that just that was like a moment of clarity of, okay, I’ve been doing the coaching at the time. I was already coaching assistants, but also other professionals and founders through uh navigating their own transitions. It was all about, okay, how do I now integrate that? I love the recruiting portion. I love giving the right talent and those high-quality humans an opportunity to really show what they’ve got and to show to find them the right opportunities that are aligned, that can really see them, that can recognize them for the spark that they bring to a new opportunity. So then I recognized wow, there’s really a need for recruiting to be offered in combination with this advocacy piece, with the onboarding piece of really understanding now how to systematize onboarding, how important proper documentation is when you onboard new talent, how important it is to have the right um procedures in place, right? So that people come in and they don’t have to fend for themselves. And then also to be able to be a resource along the way once I’ve placed new talent of being able to coach them through their career transitions and through the different stages of their tenure in their in their role, but also to be able to offer that same coaching to their bosses. So I specialize, like I said, in luxury lifestyle support, uh, which means that I work with a lot of domestic staff. And oftentimes the people who need that domestic support aren’t natural people leaders. So they need the support, but they don’t know what they don’t know. And they don’t necessarily know how to lead, um, how to lead people, how to create the right structure to make it a fruitful and long-term opportunity for people to grow, for people to flourish. Nobody wants um revolving doors in their home. You know, most for the most part, I work with people who are really keen on confidentiality and making sure that the people who work for them are an extension of who they are and how they operate, especially when it comes to childcare and all of that. So understanding that and being able to guide these people who have the means, have the lifestyle that demand support, have the luxury of having quality humans come in and helping them, but to recognize that oftentimes the reason it doesn’t work out is because the right foundation isn’t in place and because people don’t know how to lead effectively.

Speaker 5: 01:00:42
And one of the core things, if I might add, is expectation management, right? One of the things I always say from both parties, expectation management. You know, talk about your expectations.

Speaker 3: 01:00:55
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 5: 01:00:56
It’s not clear, I’m sure it’s not easy for you to hire the right candidates, right?

Speaker 3: 01:00:60
No, it’s so true. And it’s it’s all about, yeah, educating both the client and the candidate on what’s realistic. Um, I see it a lot now, and I don’t know that it’s really specific to one industry. I think people are not not fully connected to what it takes to be successful. They have these glitzy ideas, and TikTok said this, and you know, my friend said that this was possible. And it’s really important to have somebody who’s an expert and who has again who’s seen things from so many different vantage points, who understand, who understands a wide range of different industries to be able to guide you and know actually, this is what’s realistic. And actually, if we want this to work and if we want, if you want a long-term um success in this role, this is how it needs to be designed. Understanding the pitfalls and being able to, like, again, like this intuition, the collecting of this data for so long around what works and what doesn’t work, you can really uh project early on where things are going to get a little bit slippery, where things can be a Can get a little bit difficult and you can create the right foundation to set everyone up for success. So that’s what I specialize in.

Speaker 5: 01:02:22
And I can only imagine what a great matchmaker you are because you bring the perspective from the EA chief of staff role, you bring the perspective of the executive role because you’ve been working with so many different executives out there and leaders, and you learned to, you know, to observe their leadership style. And also being your own, I mean, uh in a kind of a role where you were the brand manager, the head of people. So you were a manager yourself, so you knew exactly what needs are out there. So I think it’s a perfect fit to bring into your consultancy. So would you say that’s that’s now me? It’s my calling. I’m I’m here and I’m gonna stay there.

Speaker 3: 01:03:02
Listen, I think that there’s always more for me. It’s so wild. I’m never, I’m never stagnant, but I’m also really mindful of wanting to bring a lot of substance to what I do. So it’s not like I’m opening a door and I’m like, okay, onto the next, onto the next. I really want to develop this further. There’s a course that I’m creating right now that speaks to exactly what we talked about here, which is this transition point in a career. Whether you’re going from becoming going from employee to entrepreneur, if you just want to elevate your game as an employee, what does that look like? And what do you have to be sort of aware of? Um, it’s a five-step program that really speaks to speaks to my experience and what has been incredibly beneficial. We spoke about a lot of that here. That’s something I really want to um develop and and further look into. I want to do more of these podcasts and interviews and have conversations with others in the fields. I love, love your podcasts. I started diving into it and doing my research. And there’s just so much that we learn from each other, right? Like community is everything and finding those communities. I have my own community actually, which I named Cocoon, spelled the German way, Kale Kalen, which is a network of like spiritually curious entrepreneurs uh who just want to know how to how to redefine success on their own terms. So, how do you redefine success in a way that is holistic, that really that’s really comprehensive, and then takes into account your spirituality, your career trajectory, how you show up as a mom, how you show up as a wife, and like just the all-encompassing um philosophy of success and how you can make redefine it for yourself. And what I love about it is we have these types of conversations in a smaller setting within the community where we all talk about the pitfalls and what we’re going through and what is happening behind closed doors when we’re no longer performing in our roles, when the mask comes off and we’re in our most vulnerable. We all need those connections. We need the people around us. Talk about, you know, having these advocates and these advisors. There’s nobody like others who’ve gone through what you’ve gone through before who are doing it right now to help you navigate these moments of just the unknown, right?

Speaker 5: 01:05:42
Yeah, it’s so true, absolutely. And um I hey, I’m I’m just very happy for you, you know, because you you you are you are so centered and you know, you know, where your passion is and your expertise is and where you’re good at. And I also love the way that you said this today. Like I’m I’m good at this, I’m good at that, managing people and you know, having this, um you know, just getting there, taking a deeper dive into every engagement and knowing the needs of the people. And I think we should allow ourselves to say this more often out there. You know, I’m good at this and I’m proud of this, and I I work for this, and now I take the credits, and maybe this leads me to my next position in life, position in business.

Speaker 3: 01:06:26
So uh I think I think that’s so true. I think that the like the biggest takeaway perhaps for somebody listening to this is really pay attention to where your cure curiosity ignites, right? Where you’re just like the things that like we talked about, the things that you could do for free if for the rest of your life, the things that keep you up at night, the things that you constantly find yourself researching, looking up on Google, the books you’re reading, what is that thing that is just your um guiding light that’s your biggest motivator? Don’t disregard it because with the skills that we acquire as assistants and with the things that we’re exposed to and how resilient we are, and how willing we are to be of service, we are so capable of becoming the most disruptive and innovative specialists in whatever field we deeply, deeply connect to. You know, and if your soul is in it, if you know that you’re connecting to this, that’s you living your purpose. Don’t question what it looks like or what format it comes in. I’m not even married to the idea that I’m an entrepreneur now for the rest of my life. There could be a job that shows up tomorrow where I’m like, this sounds amazing, let’s go for it. I’m never right, okay. But like I love so because people always we put entrepreneurship on such a pedestal. First of all, you guys, you want to be really ready for it. You know, like it’s you and you, and you have to be your own cheerleader and you have to figure this out. Luckily, you have people like myself, people like you who are always in your corner and willing to connect you and willing to support you. Look for those people, but also don’t put any format on a pedestal. It’s all about you, it’s not about what form it comes in. It’s about you utilizing your voice and your gifts in the most impactful way.

unknown: 01:08:30
Yeah.

Speaker 3: 01:08:31
So don’t worry what form that comes in, but follow your gut and give yourself a chance to explore all of it and see what you’re truly capable of.

Speaker 5: 01:08:42
Saturate advice, absolutely. And as I was telling you before, I have a lot of people in my network that are, you know, in a transition at the moment. You know, what’s the next path, what’s the next journey? So um really, really great advice you’re sharing with us. And hey, let us know when the course is out. Uh, we’re gonna, you know, definitely promote it for our um community. Let us know. Um, very happy to share, of course, again. Fantastic. It’s all about support system, right?

Speaker 2: 01:09:10
Can I ask you something, Deanna? Sure, of course. What’s next for you?

Speaker 3: 01:09:15
So you’re doing this amazing podcast. You’ve been nomading around for a long time now. Do you still love it?

Speaker 5: 01:09:22
Two years. Two years, actually.

Speaker 3: 01:09:23
Two years.

Speaker 5: 01:09:24
So we still love it. But it’s it’s getting to a phase where we feel like time to settle, maybe next year, you know, because okay. We’ve seen a lot. I mean, imagine two years on the road is it’s incredible. And then we are so grateful for the opportunity. And I’m also grateful for my clients, you know, to to allow me to operate this way from Italy, from Spain, from Dubai, wherever. Um it’s just incredible how much we grew also as partners and and um also the way I look at my business. But um, yeah, I think 2025 will be a year of transition, you know, finding out what’s the next place, where we’re gonna stay a little longer in order to you know find out if this is a roof. Exactly. If this is the place to go, we have a few spots on our mind, of course. Um yeah, so let’s see if if it’s gonna be a little bit more into settlement, but also business-wise, I I love to go more into a producer. Like I have been on these ages, like I have been on these stages giving key notes and doing workshops and whatever. So I learned that I find the most joy working in a closer settings, in very private settings, like a one-on-one coaching or coaching in the executive with the chief of staff or the assistant. So I love these smaller settings instead of going on a big stage. I’ve I’ve had this for eight years, eight years of the business now almost. Um, so I really find out that I really um want to focus more on the smaller projects, but also get into a producer role like you know, producing my own events, like I’m producing my own summit. I I just did this this year for the third time. And wonderful, 124 people from um Germany, Switzerland, and Austria joined us in person or virtual. Virtual. But of course, you know, when I’m getting into more of a producer mode, of course, maybe some live events are coming because the people are asking me about it. They say, When are you gonna do a live masterclass and when are you gonna do that? So, and you know, what I also love is like giving the platform to to other wonderful experts out there. So when I get into the producer role, I don’t need to be on the stage. And I always say it with um I kind of see it how actors sometimes you know go from that’s right, in front of the camera to behind of the camera, like all of a sudden I’m a director, right? And um, and this is how how I feel at the moment that um I don’t need to be in front of the camera anymore. Also, what one of the things is the podcast, I’m just the interviewer here, right? Um, so this is something that is definitely uh changing at the moment, yeah.

Speaker 3: 01:12:09
I love that. And isn’t that sort of it’s sort of what I’ve been doing too, right? Like we are the these assistants and we’re front facing, and then we take further and further further steps backwards to become the conductors of it all, right? Exactly. I love that for you. I know I love I love um your spirit, I love your spirit of connecting because there’s something so genuinely connected, and I think that’s probably why you’re so successful at what you do, is you’re always so willing to connect, you find such joy in connecting the right people with each other. We’re so similar that way, and it’s been such a gift meeting you.

Speaker 5: 01:12:47
I was trying to remember how we met, and I couldn’t actually I’ve never I think I reached out to you on LinkedIn or something. I I’ve seen something about something like that.

Speaker 3: 01:12:58
Was it like through bass or something?

Speaker 5: 01:12:59
Some panel that I was like, we were on the panel, we were on the panel, of course. Yes, exactly. I was blown away by your presence, so I reached out right away. Yeah, that’s the same thing.

Speaker 2: 01:13:10
Amazing how it happened.

Speaker 3: 01:13:12
For everyone listening, that’s how it works. Like, really pay attention if you speak from the heart, if you’re connected to who you are and you’re vocal about it, um, you the people will find you, the connections, and you will know when those like we stay in touch like periodically, right? But we’re always always a text message.

Speaker 2: 01:13:34
That’s right. Like it’s wonderful to have that connection.

Speaker 5: 01:13:37
And I love getting your messages like, where are you right now? You’re you know, the envelope trotter. So it’s always funny, and I specifically love when you write in German to me. And of course, I cannot let you go here, you know, finishing up the podcast without saying a few words to our German um listeners, uh German-speaking listeners and viewers. But before we do that, I just want to you know ask you a last private question. I mean you’re telling us a little bit about going out into the nature and doing mediation, meditation, sorry, and um you do your yoga, you have your family. What else else is out there that brings you joy? Is there any other hobby or anything where you feel like I instantly have a smile on my face when I do that?

Speaker 3: 01:14:22
For me, it’s really travel. Like I need, I need we just spend seven months living in Miami. Um, last year before that, we spent a good chunk of time in Mexico and Toulouse. Yeah, I remember. Um, we were in Costa Rica. So we had so many different um uh great adventures, like adventure with my family is really where I get inspiration because I need that lifeline of connection to other humans, right? And I need to know what how people are operating, what they’re struggling with, what’s going on out there. So for me, it’s so nerdy to say, but travel and the work that I do is really what keeps me alive. It’s just my it’s my lifeline. I love it so much and I love to, I love the um the pace of it. I love to be really busy. I love to coach and guide people through their career transitions, and I love to I get so much energy from people’s stories and being able to be of service and connecting the dots for them. So I’m a bit of a workaholic, but in the best sense of the term.

Speaker 5: 01:15:33
Because you are mindful, because you’re mindful to yourself, and that’s that makes a difference, probably, right?

Speaker 3: 01:15:38
Yes, and I’ve always there came a point where I just felt like, what is this concept of looking forward to the weekend, looking forward to vacation, or like that just gives it’s giving prison, you know what I mean? If you’re constantly looking for the next moment to have a rest or to have a break, to me, like the integration of both and being able to take my work wherever I go, to be able to be adventurous and then still have the connection of being of service to all these great humans that I work with, it’s it’s a dream.

Speaker 5: 01:16:10
Perfect, wonderful. Wishing you all the best, and I’m very happy for this conversation and lots of takeaways for our community. And the last question I would love to ask you, and maybe you want to answer that in German. Yeah, tell me. What do you love about Hamburg?

Speaker 3: 01:16:30
Hamburg, Hamburg, Hamburg, the Alster. I think the stuff is so unique, so green, obviously. Um, I think the level are so there’s a sincerity, the man merks that they are not unbelievable warm, which they in the friends that man, that man in Hamburg made, are really friends for sustainable friends, right? Sustainable friends, and honestly, there is such an efficiency in the way you navigate life in Hamburg, in Germany in general, but like in Hamburg, it’s such a big city. And I remember taking my husband there, and he was just like, the Germans just know how to do it. He’s like, There’s it all makes so much sense, everything’s so logical. Like from the way you enter the train, from the way you exit the restaurant, like everything is placed in such an efficient way to move around. I never recognize it until you take it for granted when you live in it.

Speaker 5: 01:17:43
I have to tell you, next time go to Switzerland, they’re even better.

Speaker 2: 01:17:47
Well, I’m about to go actually.

Speaker 3: 01:17:48
My friend’s getting married in August, so I will be in Europe this summer. So I’m really and she’s in Geneva. I can’t wait to be.

Speaker 5: 01:18:00
We just got back from Switzerland. Our last stop, the digital novel stop, was uh five weeks, four weeks in Switzerland. So I’ve been teaching in Zurich, I’ve been meeting clients around the Zurich area, but we’ve been traveling around. We were also in the French part, uh, French speaking part of uh Switzerland. And I can tell you they top it. They simply top it, and they know that’s incredible how good they are. And I I love to be in Switzerland all the time because you can even see a higher level of ship efficiency there. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 01:18:30
I’m so excited now. Bring your husband for sure to explore Switzerland. For sure. And the kids as well.

Speaker 3: 01:18:38
So I want to, Deanna, before we leave, I just really wanted to thank you, not just for bringing me on, which I’m so honored that you gave me a chance, but also thank you for everything that you do. I see what you’re doing out there, even though we’re not in concept communic contact, constant communication. I pay attention and I’m always in the sidelines, sort of paying attention to what you’re doing, what you’re posting about, what you’re doing here on the podcast. It is so needed. It’s so needed for people to hear what else is out there to feel it can be such a lonely path, as you know, to be an assistant and to not know where to turn to, how to how to be your own cheerleader, how to encourage yourself to go for more. We are superhumans, you guys. And all of us have our own unique superpower. Fact. Like nobody can tell me otherwise. And you’re none of us are excluded from that. So it’s just a matter of getting really, really um curious, but also get a lot of joy from um discovering what that is. Don’t get stuck in this just blind servitude and like it’s all for other people, and I’m such an empath. That’s beautiful, that’s a beautiful trait, but you’re not here by accident. And you’re not here to just be echoing the voices of others. You all have something really important to share in this world that is unique to you, that only you can bring to the table the way you do. And I encourage all of you to utilize this platform, what Diana is building here, these types of conversations to remind you it takes all of us to change this world. You know, and we’re all here to support you. And I just command you for everything that you’re doing because it’s so needed.

Speaker 5: 01:20:24
Oh, this is so beautiful. Thank you so much to hear this from you. It really means a lot. And I appreciate the very honest conversation we had. Thank you so much for giving away so much great advice.

Speaker 3: 01:20:34
Um wait to bring this to come in a guys, I’m currently remembering my website as I told you, so I’m going to do my best to have it up by the time this comes out. But regardless, it’s donataboston.com. It’s really firstandlastname.com where you’ll find everything that I talked about, including how you can sign up if you’re looking for a new job, how you can connect in other ways if you want to be coached through career transitions, and also how to access my online community for entrepreneurs, but also any leaders. We’re all leaders at the end of the day. If you need community, if you’re looking for support, just reach out. And if um for whatever reason you can’t get in touch, you can mute me on Donata at donataboston.com as well.

Speaker 5: 01:21:22
And you are on LinkedIn as well. So can I use Donata on LinkedIn? I’m sure there’s no excuses. Lots of new connections from especially the German speaking community, I’m sure. Absolutely. And I’m sure the Hamburg community is gonna hold up a flag as well for you.

Speaker 3: 01:21:40
I love it. I hope nobody in Munich heard me talk about it.

Speaker 5: 01:21:43
No, no, no, no. Don’t worry. Okay, don’t worry. I don’t want to get in trouble with the you know, it’s it’s not a myth. I mean, we all know that the north and the south are totally, totally different personalities, so that’s totally fine. And I grew up in Frankfurt the middle, so I’m I’m out of staying out of it. A little bit of all of it. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Um, my dear friends, thank you so much. Take good care. Thank you, Alice. Dankeschön. Uh lots of greetings to LA and um, yeah, talk soon. Okay.

Speaker 2: 01:22:12
We’ll see you soon.

Speaker 5: 01:22:15
I know you had a great time listening to this conversation with Donata. I know it was a long, long talk, but there was so much great information coming from her. And this is always the case when I talk to her. She gives such great advice. And I remember when we had around two years ago the live event I organized, the audience was captured by her wisdom and how she is really helping us to understand the situation we’re in right now and that we should not be afraid of going to the next path of our journey. So thank you so much, Donata, for being here, and thank you so much, dear community, for listening and for watching, and cannot wait to get your feedback.

Speaker 1: 01:22:54
You’re listening to the Leader Assistant Podcast.

Deborrah Mac Kenzie-Meneades has over 30 years of experience in executive support.

In this episode of The Leader Assistant Podcast, Deborrah shares her assistant career story, including a bit from her experience leading EA teams, and talks about superpowers assistants have.

CONNECT WITH DEBORRAH

• • Deborrah on LinkedIn

ABOUT DEBORRAH

Deborrah Mac Kenzie works as the Executive Assistant at Energetiq Technology, Inc. she is not just there to keep the wheels turning. She is here to ensure our award-winning leadership team has the freedom to focus on innovation and growth. With over 30 years of experience in executive support, she brings a steady commitment to our fast-growing company’s vision and a passion for facilitating our leaders’ success!

Outside the office, you’ll often find Deborrah exploring mountain bike trails in New England, summit bike rides in VT, indulging in culinary adventures, and giving animals a voice. Her personality is contagious as she enjoys being a land soul and living off the land while making face and body oils.

–––

THE LEADER ASSISTANT ACADEMY

Enroll in the on-demand, AI-powered professional development resource for Leader Assistants who want to level up. Learn more -> The Leader Assistant Academy.

THE LEADER ASSISTANT BOOK

Download the first 3 chapters of The Leader Assistant: Four Pillars of Game-Changing Assistant for FREE here or buy it on Amazon and listen to the audiobook on Audible. Also, check out the companion study guide, The Leader Assistant Workbook, to dig deeper.

JOIN THE FREE COMMUNITY

Join the Leader Assistant Global Community for bonus content, job opportunities, and to network with other assistants who are committed to becoming leaders!

THE LEADER ASSISTANT PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP

To learn more about how you can join growth-minded Leader Assistants, check out our Leader Assistant Premium Membership for ongoing training, coaching, and community.

LEADER ASSISTANT LIVE EVENTS

Check out our constantly updated schedule of events for admins and assistants at LeaderAssistantLive.com.

SUBSCRIBE

Subscribe to The Leader Assistant Podcast so you don’t miss new episodes!

You can find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pandora, and Stitcher.

Join my email list here if you want to get an email when a new episode goes live.

LEAVE A REVIEW

If you’re enjoying the podcast, please take 2 minutes to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts here. Each review helps me stay motivated to keep the show going!

–––

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Jeremy: 00:23
Hey friends, welcome to the Leader Assistant Podcast. It’s your host, Jeremy Burroughs, and I’m excited to welcome you to episode 366. You can check out the show notes for this episode at LeaderAssistant.com/366. So today we’re going to be talking about EA superpowers, and my special guest is Deborrah McKenzie. Deborrah is in Boston, is that right?

Deborrah: 00:54
Yes, just about 30 miles a little over, north of Boston. Yes.

Jeremy: 00:59
Awesome, awesome. Well, welcome to the show. Um Deborrah is currently an executive business partner and has a uh great career in executive support. So we’re excited to have you on the show and chat a little bit about your story and your career. Uh, and then of course, uh, all about uh EA superpowers. So before we jump into your career, tell us uh what’s one thing you like to do when you’re not working?

Deborrah: 01:27
Uh so my me time is riding my mountain bike or my summit bike, and I don’t have to worry about cooking, cleaning, and what have you. It’s all about me.

Jeremy: 01:40
Nice. What’s the for for a uh non-bike expert? What’s the difference between a mountain bike and a summit bike?

Deborrah: 01:49
Okay, so the summit bike you can pick up with two pinky fingers. It’s super light, and it only has about three gears. Some people have two gears, and you’re going straight up the summit.

Jeremy: 02:02
Gotcha.

Deborrah: 02:03
And yeah, I can do a lot of that in Vermont. I was gonna try to ride in Mount Washington, but I have not done it yet. So I will stay in Vermont for now.

Jeremy: 02:16
Awesome, love it. Well, that’s that’s great. Uh, so tell us a little bit about your career. How did you end up becoming an EA?

Deborrah: 02:27
Uh so where do I start? My undergrad is in fashion design, and that’s what I started to do first and really loved it, but it was just myself, the sewing machine, and my stereo. And I got a little bored of that. Probably after a year, I remembered an aren’t always talking about being a secretary, and it fascinated me what she got to do and what have you. And my my mother as well got to do a little bit of that too. So my aunt went to Birdt School, and I chose also to go to Birdett School, and it’s located in the Boston area. I can’t remember where hers was, I think it was out in the suburbs. But um, we were rivals with um Katie Gibbs, and it just was a school for 10 months, I think it was, and we would go to school from like eight to five every day. And yeah, I liked it and I’m still in it. And I I it’s kind of funny as an EA, and I think we can all agree to this. I know we have many titles, but what other position in the world or business gets to have as much fun as we do? Because we can create it in any direction and again using your superpowers to do it. And to me, I I think that’s awesome.

Jeremy: 04:07
Love it. I love it. So what’s your okay, so that’s maybe one of the parts of the job that you love. What’s one of the most frustrating parts uh about being an assistant uh over your career?

Deborrah: 04:20
I think I guess being overlooked. Um because I I did strive to be the executive business partner. I did not make it. I know you introduced me that way, so I’m still striving. I’m not gonna give up. Um and uh yeah, it’s hard. I think it’s a hard battle for any executive assistant or any admin position to grow. And that is uh has been a struggle. And hopefully it will end.

Jeremy: 04:58
Yeah, so when you say strive for it, so is that something that you’re in the process of trying to get your title get a title change essentially?

Deborrah: 05:07
Yes, yes. And it’s not so much about the title, it really isn’t. It’s it’s a goal. It’s a goal that’s been set, and I just have to conquer it.

Jeremy: 05:19
Yeah.

Deborrah: 05:19
And I feel like I’m there. I just still you know, I’ll still go for it.

Jeremy: 05:26
Yeah, totally. So tell us about where you’re at currently then.

Deborrah: 05:32
Okay, so currently I am using many superpowers, and you’re probably asking, what are superpowers? So they can be um work great under pressure, highly confidential, constantly challenging myself. So definitely challenge yourself, strong follow-up skills and follow-through skills, employee gratitude. So where I work, we use this program called Wish List, and we get to say thank you to other employees, even the senior leadership team. It’s actually really nice. It even puts birthdays on there and things like that. And learning to keep positive. I know it’s a hard thing to do, but keep in that moment and being known that you’re trustworthy, because this allows you to be that sounding board and to, and it, in my opinion, it’s always helped me to be part of the, if you want to call the CEO round table. So where the SLT sit, you yourself, and you get to speak. And you’re present also at annual retreats that you put together. Ours are usually in the New England area. It’s not like we have to fly to them. So that’s nice. Not that I haven’t done trips like that, um, but it just makes it a little nicer that it’s locally. And I guess typical administrative work is well. And I think that’s about it for my superpowers. Well, there’s more, but I don’t want to talk about all of them.

Jeremy: 07:23
Yeah, so what uh when did your mindset shift um throughout your career as an assistant from hey, you know, I’m just a I’m just a task doer, or I’m just a you know order taker, to I’m actually I’ve got these superpowers, I’m actually a leader, I’ve actually got influence, and this is more of a uh strategic partner career than just doing what people ask me to do.

Deborrah: 07:53
Yes. So I started off as a marketing secretary, and from there I went into administrative assistant, and from there I was the executive assistant to a CEO. And then at that point, I could see where I was needed and would step in. So at that point, also we worked on in a subsidiary company, and when my CEO went to the larger company, I didn’t know where I was gonna stand. And he said to me, I hope you’re coming. So, of course. And then he was he headed up the strategy department in this company, and I guess I created great branding because when the new CEO came on board, he said, Who’s the best EA? And I was voted, and I was super excited, and that was really the seat that I knew I had to learn and grow in. And that was a good I think I want to say 30 years ago.

Jeremy: 09:05
Right.

Deborrah: 09:06
So I’ve been supporting CEOs, CFOs, um, legal counsels ever since then. Um, but primarily CEOs. I like the business part. The CFO side, I’m okay with numbers, I but I’m more into the business. And I’ve always heard, and I’m not sure if it’s true, you’re either good at one or the other. So you’re either a business person or a number person, and I guess I’m business.

Jeremy: 09:36
Nice, nice. Yeah, I’m definitely not a numbers person. I like to I like it when the numbers, I like it when our goals are quantifiable and I can and trackable, but I don’t like when I have to be the one to to do the math and figure out the numbers.

Deborrah: 09:52
Yeah.

Jeremy: 09:55
Awesome. So really it sounds like the the big shift for you was when that EA to CEO position opportunity came, and then the CEO and the leadership team was very like supportive and um you know affirmed your your value.

Deborrah: 10:17
Yes. And then by like 2006 or seven, I worked at a company where they allowed me to get my master’s degree and they paid for it. So at that point, I learned a lot, like a lot of the financial end as well as the business end, how outside of the company, you know, affects the company and the overall and what have you. And again, I leaned towards the business and as well as the marketing side. So I love being creative. As EAs, I know we have to be creative as well and problem solving and what have you. So I think that helped a lot as well. I’m not saying everybody has to get a master’s degree, but I I you know was appreciative that the company said, Hey, would you like to do this? And I was on board. Yeah. It’s it’s helped me tremendously.

Jeremy: 11:17
How so you did that while you were working?

Deborrah: 11:19
Yes.

Jeremy: 11:20
So how long did it take?

Deborrah: 11:21
And it was kind of cool while I was working on we did like four-day work weeks, 10-hour shifts. And my classes, I would do all my homework on Friday, and my classes were on the weekend, sometimes in the evening, but primarily on the weekend.

Jeremy: 11:35
Wow.

unknown: 11:36
Yeah.

Jeremy: 11:37
So do you how about how long did that take? Do you think three years? Three years? Wow.

Deborrah: 11:42
Yeah, it was tough.

Jeremy: 11:43
I was gonna say that sounds like a busy three years.

Deborrah: 11:45
Yeah, no, it was tough. I think my dog even hated me.

Jeremy: 11:51
Well, that’s awesome. So, what would you say is something that you learned on the job that you didn’t that you just there’s no way somebody could learn in the formal education MBA process?

Deborrah: 12:08
Well, I that’s kind of funny. There’s I guess there’s a lot of things. One would be personalities, there’s always different personalities. Um I know that there’s this book. Um I forget. It’s that that book in graduate school helped me out because of personalities. So it’s like four different pillars, and you put those people in those pillars, then you know how to speak to them. Because sometimes when you say something communication-wise, even written, you the verbal part might get lost, the written part gets lost, and or it’s just a big no, we’ve done that, blah, blah, blah. So that book helped me to say, well, let’s look at it this way, or well, how did you see it? Like, what went wrong? Like it helped me to ask the right questions than just say, oh, okay, it’s been done, forget it. So I think that was a huge step that I and I still use it today. Actually, I just finished a six-month program with um a company for administrative people, and I was I learned my new superpower that I’m a very eloquent writer. Um, I didn’t realize that, but I actually hear it when I speak as well now. And I’m glad she, you know, let me know.

Jeremy: 13:36
That’s awesome.

unknown: 13:37
Yeah.

Jeremy: 13:38
So let’s talk a little bit about your network or your working relationship with other assistants. Did you work on a team of assistants uh throughout your career? Have you been the only assistants? Um, and then if you have been the only assistant, how did how did you like maybe try to network with other assistants at other companies? Tell tell us a little bit about that.

Deborrah: 14:02
Okay. So I’ve it’s been a little bit everything. I’ve been part of a team. I I’ve been the senior EA to the administrative team three times. And what I usually do is I go by their strengths. Whatever they’re strong in, that is that workload’s going in that direction. Um, mine always seems to end with points. So um I excel in SharePoint, I excel in PowerPoint. So if there’s a any other program out there that ends at a point, let me know. Um but so I’ve always been asked by like HR, can you do this for me? Because I’m highly confidential, I’m happy to uh orchestrate anything for them. So I always seem to have a dotted line in that direction. And and to actually train other EAs. This is how PowerPoint works, let’s make it fun, bring in pitches, and let’s like see how they change and things like that. So um, in and even with um what is it? Um like calendar setting, people don’t realize that it has like a calendar so that you can put the time in it so it’s on the other side of the world. I’ve seen EA sit there and count the hours and then put the time in, and I’m like, what are you doing? Like it already does that, and like being able to help them with things like that, and then saying, hey, let’s put together a monthly meeting so that we can drive and train one another and see what one another knows that the other doesn’t know has always helped. And yeah, how did they look there as a team?

Jeremy: 15:58
So, how did you end up leading those in those points in your career where you were kind of overseeing the EA teams? Was it something that you you know were looking for? Like, hey, uh I want to do this, or did they just throw, hey, sorry, uh Deborah, you’re in charge of these assistants now.

Deborrah: 16:18
Yeah. So no, I wasn’t looking for it, and it was tossed my way, and uh I it was just kind of funny. I I just remember going home saying, How do I do this? and looking at myself saying, Well, these are my strengths, what are they? So I would meet with them individually to find out what their strengths are and then bring them together as a group and say, you know, how do we use one another’s strengths? Do we want to be in a bullpen and people say, hey, I need help with Excel, I’ll give it to you. Because if you can’t support your CFO, somebody else in that group has to be able to support them if you don’t have that skill set. But we’re gonna teach you how to and then just keep building it from there. Um and I think the last almost 10 years, maybe I’ve been the solo EA. There hasn’t been any other EAs. I mean, I think companies have really buckled down on, you know, keeping a lean kind of employee organization. I don’t think any company wants to lead people off or what have you, so keeping it lean um has helped, you know, yeah get out of that problem. And it and it’s I’m actually fine with it because now I get to team up with either senior leadership, management, directors, get their spin on different things that maybe I don’t see it. And I believe that’s helped me as well. Yeah. Being flexible.

Jeremy: 18:05
Yeah, I could see how you know if you’re leading a team or you’re part of a big EA team, you’re spending a lot of time with them, it takes takes away some of that opportunity, or it could take away some of that opportunity to learn from those executives and um, you know, pull you away from some of those maybe leadership team meetings and whatnot.

Deborrah: 18:23
Yes. No, I agree. Yes.

Jeremy: 18:26
Well, Deborah, what what’s something is as we wrap up, thanks again for being on the show. What what’s something that you wanted to share with or maybe some final thoughts um with assistants all over the world who are listening right now? Um and no pressure though, because they’re just doing their dishes and they’re just driving to work. There’s it’s not like they’re uh they’re you know, it’s not a super pressure moment, but there are uh hopefully thousands of people listening right now, and uh there are assistants in different parts of the world, uh different sizes of organizations, different sizes of teams, different temperaments of executives, um, and everything in between. So what’s uh what’s something you want to share now that you’ve got the microphone?

Deborrah: 19:14
Um I think what comes to mind when we talk about superpowers, find out what your superpowers are and really get good at them. And how do you find out what they are? You will definitely hear about them during your annual review. What you’re not good at and what you’re good at. And the ones you’re good at, just keep getting better at them. Then next year, add more. It could even just be one, but know that you’re getting better at it and really get better at it. It’s it’s helped my career. Um, I’ve often been asked by CEOs why do you do what you do? Um, because I’m good at it. It’s like going to work and having fun, not really. I mean, it’s You gotta balance a lot of stuff, but I’m having fun what I do and and growing. It’s just if you’re not growing, maybe you’re gonna find the right EA position and what have you, but it’s it truly is. It’s been a really nice career for myself. Um and really find her superpowers and make them as strong as possible. It truly has helped me.

Jeremy: 20:35
Love it. Well, thank you, Deborah, for sharing. And uh for those that want to connect with Deborah, I’ve got the show notes at leaderassistant.com slash three six six and we’ll link to your LinkedIn uh page so people can connect and say hi. Um and uh yeah, just uh really appreciate you taking time out of your day and thank you for your uh support work over the years and in the career, the administrative professional career. Um, and hopefully we’ll get to uh connect in Boston sometime.

Deborrah: 21:13
Yes, I would love that. And I think we can all say thank you for your great book as well. I um if you look as I show you here, I have many tabs. So they’ve helped me. I like keep it simple when you do a task, the action and what have you. So that’s helped me. It’s those simple things, you know, like sometimes we overthink.

unknown: 21:37
Yeah.

Jeremy: 21:38
Well, that’s great. Thanks for the the kind words and for reading the book and um marking it up and putting all the post-it notes in the in the in the tab. So uh, but yeah, thanks again. Best of luck to you, and thank you everyone for listening. Again, leaderassistant.com slash three six six to check out the show notes, and we’ll talk to you next time.

Deborrah: 21:58
Great. Thank you.