REACH - A Podcast for Executive Assistants

In this episode, we talk about all things travel coordination in a "post-pandemic" world. Courtney Puckett, Senior Executive Assistant to the CEO of Crunchbase, does quite a bit of traveling in her role and of course she’s the brains behind booking any trip, conference, or event for her CEO, and in cases like planning an SKO, she’s the one executing travel arrangements for all attendees. 

Clearly travel as we know it has ch...

We had the honor of speaking with the women behind the woman, referring to Executive Assistant, Kenya Graham & Personal Assistant Lisa Magazine, who together supported the one and only, iconic Sara Blakely, who is of course the legendary entrepreneur and founder of Spanx. In this episode, we hear how Kenya & Lisa worked together to provide holistic, continuous 360-degree support to Sara so she could ultimately show up as th...

In this episode, Kevin Baker, VP of Team and Customer Success at Maven Recruiting Group, addresses all of your equity and stock options questions. If you’ve ever received an offer letter from a pre-IPO company and found yourself positively stumped trying to wrap your head around what exactly was being offered, you wouldn’t be the first or the last! The purpose of this episode is to help you navigate through the quagmire of legal-es...

Former Executive Assistant-turned-Chief of Staff and current Executive Coach, Julia Quijano, tackles the popular topic and trending hashtag, The Great Resignation and in particular, how she’s seen this movement affect executives and leaders of companies. We often forget that our leaders are also part of the equation! In sharing this perspective, we hope you will be better equipped to relate to your executives and adjust your suppor...

If you weren't able join us for our third REACH Roundtable Livestream, we missed you, but we captured the audio for you to listen to here. For those who aren't familiar, REACH Roundtable is an extension of our podcast where we invite former guests back to discuss all things hot topics in the Executive Assistant world. In this episode, you’ll hear from the guests you know and love, Lauren Pelusi, Rowe Hoffer, LJ Cohen, and K...

In this episode, we are joined by Carrie Zimney, former Executive Assistant to the COO, Private Office of Bill Gates Ventures! Carrie brings up the oh so debated title discussion, a sensitive and weighty topic for many support professionals. There's no denying the ways in which the executive support role has evolved over the years since its original "Secretary" days. Today we continue to witness various companies adopt ...

If you’ve dreamed of supporting someone in Hollywood and you’re curious to hear what it’s really like, now's your opportunity! Jake Thomson, Executive Assistant to the CEO of Cosm, has supported several big names in the entertainment industry such as Heather Parry (Television & Film Producer best known for Pixels, The House Bunny & A Star is Born), Kelly Osbourne (actress & daughter of Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne) &a...

In this episode of REACH, Stacy DeRosa, former Executive Assistant to the Founder and CEO of Glossier, Emily Weiss, discusses the difference between supporting a member of the C-Suite versus what it means to support the Founder of an organization. While it might seem like there wouldn’t be a ton of variance between the two, Stacy tells us otherwise. Great food for thought for those considering to take the leap from supporting a C-L...

If you couldn’t join us for our second REACH Roundtable Livestream, here’s our playback. REACH Roundtable is an extension of our podcast where we invite former guests back to discuss all things hot topics in the Executive Assistant world. In this episode, you’ll hear from the guests you know and love, Lauren Pelusi, Rowe Hoffer, LJ Cohen, and Kristin Beatham as they share their unique perspectives staying engaged in their work as ...

While we’re clearly huge advocates of the Executive Assistant career path, we also recognize that there are those whose inclinations and desires ultimately lead them away from that career and feel there is also value in talking about those guest stories. In this episode, we feature Tiffany Haughton’s story of going from Executive Assistant to the CEO of Poshmark to Growth Partnerships still within Poshmark! Tiffany’s roots as an EA...

Ellie Dunne, Executive Assistant to the Head of Global Security at Stripe, shares her tips and tricks for how to gather the context you need in order to confidently make decisions on your executive’s behalf and what that looks like in practice. Perhaps your executive never has the time to get you up to speed or lacks the communication style to provide you with the details... or maybe working from home has just made it all the more ...

There’s no denying the record of IPOs that have taken place on the US stock market this year and the flurry of organizations headed down that path next, so we decided it was time to dedicate an episode to the role an EA plays in taking a company public. We invited back former REACH guest Tanya Benvenuto, who played a significant role in Okta’s IPO back in 2017. At the center of it all, ringing the bell next to CEO, Todd McKinnon, T...

We’ve talked a lot about what it means to support an executive in the business realm, but less has been explored about what it takes to support an executive in the personal realm. We decided it was time to dedicate an entire episode to estate management, so we invited prominent Estate Manager & Personal Assistant, Alicia Myers, to discuss all things estate management and how to successfully set up a personal household. We touch...

Angela Wiley, Executive Assistant to the SVP of Americas Sales and the SVP of Global Corporate Sales at Equinix, talks about her experience supporting newly minted leaders and executives who had never experienced support until Angela! In this episode, we discuss the typical areas that first-time founders need coaching or direction from their EAs and specifically, how Angela built both a thoughtful and meaningful partnership with he...

Shelley Trask, Senior Executive Assistant to the CTO/Co-Founder of Slack and avid thought leader in the administrative community, joins us to tackle one of her favorite topics: How to Support a Difficult Executive. (And in case you were concerned, no, she's definitely not referring to her current exec!) Listen in as Shelley shares her strategies for how to get around said difficulty and how you can help coach your executive’s b...

If you’re looking for advice on all things salary negotiation, performance reviews and mentorship, you’ve stumbled upon the right episode. Mentorship is something Senior Business Partner, Autumn Heard, is incredibly passionate about. She currently manages a team of three admins at Medallia but has helped mentor, train and develop many administrative professionals over the years. In this episode, Autumn mentors our community by shar...

If you couldn’t join us for our first REACH Roundtable Livestream, we saved our audio playback for you. REACH Roundtable is an extension of our podcast where we invite former guests back to discuss all things hot topics in the Executive Assistant world. For our first Roundtable, we tackled the single-most relevant topic: “Returning to the Office.” In this episode, you’ll hear from the guests you know and love, Lauren Pelusi, Rowe H...

The Chief of Staff topic isn’t going anywhere! In this episode we interview Jenna Miller, Chief of Staff at Betterworks to share her perspective on the CoS role. With all of the hype around this somewhat squishy and nuanced position, we’re making an effort to bring you the insight and perspective you’re looking for. Jenna talks about her recent promotion to Chief of Staff and the ways in which the Chief of Staff role differs from h...