REACH - A Podcast for Executive Assistants

Best Practices for Getting Off on the Right Foot with Your Executive

Success in an Executive Assistant role is predicated on establishing the right practices and behaviors with your executive from the outset, boundary setting, mutual respect and open dialogue. Ligaya Fieler, Senior Executive Assistant at SurveyMonkey, walks us through how she’s personally accomplished these things with her Executives over the years – one story includes how she earned the respect of a traditionally “grumpy” Exec! In this episode, you too will learn how to set the tone for a productive relationship with your Executive from the very beginning in order to create an effective and lasting partnership. Spoiler alert: it involves confidence, honest reflection, prioritization and managing up.

The Art of Finding Your Voice and Pushing Back (with Finesse)

In a service-oriented role, sometimes it can be a challenge to strike a balance between being helpful and supportive of others and their needs while also ensuring you don’t take on too much. We all know that sometimes we need to be able to “manage up” and push back. Chances are, this is probably something that you’re already doing on a daily basis. However, the act of managing up is truly an art, and one that can always be worked on and perfected, and it comes more naturally to some than others. In this episode, Molly McKnight, Executive Assistant at Handshake, discusses the importance of finding your voice and learning to say “no” as a mid-level Executive Assistant. At one point in her career, Molly supported 19 Executives! Learn how she navigated those conversations and made significant progress in the areas of managing up and striking a balance between providing effective support to multiple people and staying sane! Learn you can juggle it all too.

The Change-Maker: How One Admin Manager Evolved the EA Role within Okta

Tanya has always had a passion for leading and mentoring Executive Assistants, starting first with her role as a Staff Supervisor at Merrill Lynch and ultimately landing in a hybrid Admin Manager / EA to CEO role at Okta. In this episode, Tanya shares the history of how she evolved and elevated the EA function within Okta and ultimately created a world-class EA team. From leading by example to teaching more junior EAs how to own the room and exude confidence to bringing in outside coaches to lead trainings on difficult conversations and even coaching the Executive Team on what it looks like to fully leverage their EAs, these are just a few ways Tanya has helped to mold and shape an exceptional EA team. Whether you’re an Admin Manager looking to grow a winning team or you’re an Executive Assistant working on personal development, there are nuggets of wisdom for everyone in this episode.

Executive Assistants vs Robots: How Technology is Changing the Landscape of Support

Meg George, former Executive Assistant to the Founder of Coinbase and Paradigm and currently the Events, Facilities and Operations Manager at Even, discusses the role of technology within the executive support and office support roles. Living in Silicon Valley, the hub of technology innovation, we see technology platforms gobbling up an increasing number of functions that used to be handled by humans. We wanted to ask the question, how much, if any of the Executive Assistant and Office Manager role, will ultimately be subsumed by technology. In this episode, Meg talks with us about whether we should be threatened by technology or excited about the additional leverage technology can bring to the support role. She also highlights her go-to tech tools that make her job easier.

Setting Your Executive up for Success When You’re on Maternity Leave

Ann Borja, Executive Business Partner to the CEO and Co-Founder of Lyft, talks to us about what a pivotal year it’s been for her – from carrying a child to going through an IPO and navigating all of that change within a highly visible role at a rocket-ship startup. In this episode, Ann offers advice to other Executive Assistants as a woman with a noteworthy and demanding EA career on the cusp of becoming a first-time mom. While Ann is fortunate to have a very supportive executive, she also offers advice on how to navigate conversations with bosses who may not be as inherently understanding. Ann also walks us through her pre-maternity leave plan, how she’s prepping for the big event and how she expects her role to change once she returns with another title, “Mom,” on her resume. Join us for a candid, intimate, and heart-warming discussion between two career women and moms.

From Tactical Assistant to Strategic Partner: How to Provide Transformative Support to Your Executive

Editor in Chief turned Critical Care Nurse turned Executive Business Partner, Paige Zeigler sheds light on how you as an Executive Assistant can be a strategic asset to your company and Executive by discussing her own thought process and behaviors. As the Executive Business Partner to Eric Gundersen, CEO of Mapbox, Paige spends her days spearheading projects and driving new initiatives in order to propel the business forward, rightfully garnering massive cred as a “transformative Executive Assistant.” Within this episode, Paige dives into her unconventional background and discusses the value and importance of transferrable skills across careers and industries. Not only that, Paige provides other Executive Assistants with tangible examples of what it means to be strategic as well as how to assess whether an opportunity has the potential to become strategic.

Diversity and Inclusion within the Executive Assistant Role

Diversity and Inclusion is a hot topic. There are a lot of people who feel passionately about D&I as a value and a virtue but aren’t really sure how to activate that within their role or career, other than it being a personal and ethical priority. Lauren Pelusi, Executive Assistant at Instacart, talks to us about the ways in which she has used the Executive Assistant role as a platform to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace and in doing so, walks us through her experiences at SurveyMonkey, Adobe and now Instacart. Whether it’s recognizing hiring biases, creating workshops for minorities, helping to awaken the perspective of her executives, or developing employee resource groups, Lauren offers real ways that you too can service your D&I goals through your Executive Assistant role. Ultimately, Lauren encourages the tech community to continue its evolution and to attract a more diverse population of employees.

Journeys from the Executive Assistant Role and Beyond

Former Disneyland Paris Princess to Executive Assistant to Max Levchin, Lia Ballard talks about her journey to becoming the Executive Support Manager & Founder of the Employee Resource Group (ERG) Black @ Affirm. From highlighting the thought process that led her to a career as an Executive Assistant to discussing her promotional path to becoming the Executive Support Manager, Lia takes us through a review of her career highlights and shares her advice for how others can strategically position themselves for their own promotions. Lia also sheds light on the potential career paths that are available to Executive Assistants and validates how accomplished the Executive Assistant role is, in and of itself. Whether you’re looking to grow into a Chief of Staff, Administrative Manager or Project Manager, Lia provides practical advice to Executive Assistants on how to realize your own career growth goals and morph into the Executive Assistant you’ve always wanted to be. 

So You Work for a Pre-IPO Startup: How to Budget for the Marathon, Not the Sprint

From Livefyre to Elf to Juul, Kristin Beatham talks about what it’s like to work as an Executive Assistant at a high-growth startup, specifically what to expect, how it’s different than a non-startup company, how to pace yourself for the marathon and the importance of practicing gratitude, while also laughing over some of the more novel start-up perks (hint: glitter bombs, donuts and break dancers!). Kristin has spent the better part of her career working for multiple high-growth startups and, in addition to supporting CEOs and Founders, has also led international office expansions and operational rollouts. Kristin challenges listeners to get real with themselves about their motivation for working in a startup, in her words, “chase the experience, not the dollars!”