Claim OwnershipREACH - A Podcast for Executive Assistants
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© 2021 REACH - A Podcast for Executive Assistants
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REACH is for the Executive Assistant who hustles hard, strives for excellence and is committed to seeking out life’s “aha moments” to help you reach the next stage in your development and career. In each episode, expect to gain invaluable insight from our personal network of Executive Assistants whose careers span the Fortune 500, Silicon Valley Venture Capital firms and your favorite tech companies and start-ups. Hosted by Maven Recruiting Group’s Founder and CEO, Jessica Vann, this is your opportunity to participate in the solidarity of listening to people who “get it.” REACH is designed to inspire your workday, guide you through pivotal moments in your career and transform you into the Executive Assistant you’ve always wanted to be.
REACH is brought to you by Maven Recruiting Group who specializes in placing Executive Assistants and support staff to the Bay Area’s most prominent Executives and companies. You can learn more about Maven at www.mavenrec.com or by reaching out to us at reach@mavenrec.com.
REACH is brought to you by Maven Recruiting Group who specializes in placing Executive Assistants and support staff to the Bay Area’s most prominent Executives and companies. You can learn more about Maven at www.mavenrec.com or by reaching out to us at reach@mavenrec.com.
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Happy Administrative Professionals Day to our REACH Executive Assistant community! In the spirit of celebration, we invited our listeners to call in to the show and ask us anything. In this episode we welcomed back Maven Recruiting Group’s VP of Accounts and Growth, Gillian Lopez, to help tackle your burning questions alongside REACH host Jessica Vann. Thank you to all of you who called in to our program and asked such insightful questions around asking for a raise, standing out in your job search, landing an EA to CEO role, adjusting your resume when you've been out of the industry for a while, getting your executive to view you as a trusted partner and so much more! We're excited to share this Q&A episode with you all!
Ann Hiatt is a Silicon Valley veteran with 15 years of executive support experience under her belt. She’s supported many of the titans of tech including Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon, Marissa Mayer, former CEO of Yahoo!, & Eric Schmidt, CEO and Executive Chairman of Google. Having pivoted from her career as an Executive Assistant and Chief of Staff, Ann is now a Leadership Strategist & Executive Coach as well as an author and podcaster! In this episode of REACH, Ann shares some of the wisdom she's gleaned from working closely with some of the brightest minds in Silicon Valley and how she’s parlayed that knowledge into her work as an executive leadership strategist. If you haven't already, be sure to grab a copy of her book Bet On Yourself: Recognize, Own & Implement Breakthrough Opportunities.
In her nearly 25-year long career, Anita Gaeta has had two primary support relationships, each lasting over a decade, which suggests a lot not only about Anita’s immense value to these executives, but also the depth and extent of her partnerships and the tremendous opportunities for learning and exchange Anita has had. When we look at Anita’s career, she has been courtside with some of the most formidable and accomplished Titans of Tech, including Meg Whitman, former CEO of both eBay and Hewlett Packard, Lars Dalgaard, Founder and CEO of Success Factors and Steven Boal, CEO of Coupons.com. In this episode we hear from Anita firsthand about some of the lessons she’s learned and observations she’s had by being in the room with such renowned tech leaders and executives. One of her best pieces of advice? Always listen.
If you’re an executive assistant curious about your rights as an employee or perhaps you work in an environment where you’re tasked with being the defacto HR person or setting employee policy, this episode is for you. We're diving into the complex world of employment law with two experts who know the ins and outs of this topic. And, I promise you, if anyone can make the law fun and relevant, it’s our guests, Angel Horacek, Founding Partner and Attorney at Law Offices of Angel J. Horacek, PC and Iryll Robbins-Umel, Civil and Employment Attorney at Law Offices of Angel J. Horacek, PC and formerly an administrative judge with the EEOC.
Both of these ladies bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table, having represented countless individuals in cases ranging from all forms of discrimination to wrongful termination to wage and hour disputes. In fact, Angel and her team secured one of the largest plaintiff verdicts in 2022 in all of California! With their track record of successfully navigating the intricacies of employment regulations, we’ve brought these ladies on to help inform you of your rights as employees as well as to decode some of the more obtuse areas of the law, so you can feel more empowered in how you navigate or consider situations you may find yourself in. Moreover, we know many of our EA listeners are themselves also people managers, hiring managers or, at times, policy creators, so it's important to understand how your role may intersect with the law.
Natasha Rodriguez, Business Operations Manager at Eyeswoon joins us from Brooklyn to talk about her role supporting the renowned Athena Calderone, dubbed as “the modern girl’s Martha Stewart” by none other than The New York Times. You may know Athena as a chef and author of the James Beard award-winning cookbook, Cook Beautiful, or perhaps you’re familiar with who she is as a designer, her book Live Beautiful or maybe you’ve seen one of her brilliant design pieces on Crate & Barrel’s website (a recent collaboration she did). In this episode of REACH, Natasha gives us a glimpse into her day-to-day and shares how she's framed her work experience and created a unique support style and brand for herself as a professional within the creative space. Be sure to shop Eyeswoon's stylish curation of beautiful objects for the kitchen and home at www.eye-swoon.com. 'Tis the season for holiday table inspo!
In this episode of REACH, we're joined by Professor Juliana Schroeder. Juliana is the Harold Furst Chair in Management Philosophy and Values Professor at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business & she just recently gave a TEDx Talk on how to connect better in light of the loneliness epidemic plaguing American culture. Schroeder is a behavioral scientist who researches the psychological processes by which people think about the minds of other people, particularly in workplace contexts. The attributions people make about others’ minds are significant because they effect decisions about how we interact with others, such as whether to help or harm them. For instance, determining whether a negotiation partner is trustworthy affects willingness to cooperate. A tributary of Juliana’s research deals with negotiations and she teaches the Negotiations and Conflict Resolution course at Haas School of Business, so we figured she’d be the perfect person to give us the 411 on all things salary negotiations, which we know is often a burning topic for our REACH listeners.
Watch Juliana's TEDx Talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J509AZl7bHY
Starting at just 15 years old, Violet Ostuni devoted much of her life to the Executive Assistant profession and worked her way to support CEOs of companies such as Zoox, Federation Bio, CSpence Group, Genstar Capital & Full Harvest. She’s held various demanding support positions and, as any good EA does, has made her executives’ goals and objectives her #1 priority, that is, until recently! Violet shares her journey from Executive Assistant to business owner, life coach, podcaster and motherhood mentor. This episode is a feel-good story that we hope inspires you to follow your dreams and passion projects as well as highlights how the Executive Assistant career can be a platform from which to launch your own entrepreneurial ambitions. Learn more about Violet Ventures at https://www.ventureviolet.com/ & check out her podcast here: https://www.ventureviolet.com/venturelovepodcast.
Today’s workspaces function very differently than they did even a year ago. Post-COVID era accommodations fundamentally shifted how we do work. A different kind of effort must be made to maintain our human connections that form as we work alongside each other. An important aspect of these connections that contribute to company culture is benefitting from inclusive and diverse workspaces. In this episode of REACH, we have the pleasure of speaking with Candace Deanes, who has had an illustrious career performing in roles that have uniquely qualified her to navigate this shift in how we work. Having been the Executive Business Partner to the Chief People and Diversity Officer at Twitter, and shifted to the Human Resources Business Partner role post-acquisition, Candace had super exclusive access and contribution to how DEI is approached and implemented in a large, dynamic organization.
In this episode, we have the privilege of interviewing one of our very own from Maven Recruiting Group, Shirin Esmaili, Account Director & Team Lead of our Temporary Division. Shirin works with our clients to fill critical gaps such as those created by parental leave, disability, vacations or just a need for additional bandwidth or capacity to get through a crunch period. Over her Maven tenure, Shirin has navigated nearly every request or situation imaginable and counseled countless clients and temp workers on how to set themselves up for success, so she’s the perfect person to cover today’s topic which is how to evaluate the need for temp coverage, plus how to hire, train & set up a contract worker for success.
We’re delighted to welcome Lorynn Boland to our program! She is an EA who has navigated both sides of the aisle, so to speak, having spent five years at Kleiner Perkins, the legendary venture capital firm, and now the last six months supporting the CEO of PlanetScale, a database platform for developers with infinite scalability. Today we’ll be learning about Lorynn’s experiences of supporting in these environments which, while different, are also inextricably linked and symbiotic.
We feel this is an important conversation to have, as there is definitely a compatibility and common language between these respective industries, as well as some noteworthy differences. For anyone curious to understand these difference or for someone who is perhaps preparing for a job interview or transition from one side to the other, today’s conversation will be particularly valuable.
In this episode, we welcome back Executive Coach and Co-Creator of Maven’s e-learning course and coaching program, Julia Quijano. Julia and Jessica recently finished the recording and roll-out of our latest e-course, “Becoming a Strategic Partner.” In furtherance to that conversation, here is a follow-up on an emerging area that is presenting itself as another strategic opportunity for executive assistants to 10x their work: the rapidly evolving area of AI.
As a quick refresher, Julia is a former Executive Assistant turned Chief of Staff and currently runs her own Executive Development Firm where she works with startup leaders across various industries. She is the co-creator and host of our (now) 2 e-courses and also facilitates our group and individual coaching programs. This is her 4th time as REACH guest and her other episodes include What it Means to be a Chief of Staff, How Executives Have Also Been Affected by The Great Resignation, and How to set SMART Goals - if you haven’t already, be sure to check those out!
In the continuously evolving AI landscape, we’ve only scratched the surface on the potential of AI as well as the latent security and legal issues that are co-emerging with the advent of AI technology, especially as that relates to the Executive Assistant role. As we further our exploration of AI in the workplace, we’ve invited subject matter expert Abraham Kang, Managing Consultant at Include Security LLC, to our program.
Abe is both an information security leader and subject matter expert who has worked for such notable companies as Venmo and Samsung and spoken internationally on security matters, as well as a Juris Doctorate licensed to practice in the State of California who lends his time as an amicus curiae specifically for the emerging intersection of AI and the law.
Whether it's earning a JD in his spare time, teaching himself quantitative mathematics or learning to dance bachata, Abe has an insatiable appetite for learning and expansion, making him the ideal guest to tackle the vastness of this topic!
The space of AI is moving so fast and evolving so quickly! AI is in the headlines nearly daily as people debate its merits, its utility in supporting efficiency and productivity, as well as the ethical and somewhat dystopian implications of its use as we incorporate it more and more into our daily lives and work. We've invited Nikki Dickman to our program to discuss her experience with AI and how she sees it supporting today's executive assistants.
Nikki is particularly qualified to speak on this subject. Not only is she an accomplished executive assistant with a background in psychology who started a tech company to help therapists connect more effectively with their autistic adolescent patients, but she is also currently the Chief of Staff at Rewind, an AI company founded and led by Dan Siroker, who previously built Optimizely and garnered wide acclaim there. Rewind AI has the provocative thesis, "What if you had perfect memory? What if you could ask any question about anything you've seen, said, or heard?" Join us as we ask this question and so many more.
Taylor DeLorenzo is the definition of an A-list Executive Assistant and high achiever. As an Ivy League graduate from Cornell, her first Executive Assistant role was supporting a Founder, and in her next role she served as the right-hand to the CEO of publicly traded Shake Shack. She then leaped over to Twitter where she ended her tenure there supporting the CEO and saw them through their much publicized takeover by Elon Musk.
In this episode, Taylor shares her story and her thoughts on how to shore up confidence in your abilities in order to accelerate your own Executive Assistant career.
If you’re a regular listener of REACH, you know that we like to unpack the nuances associated within EA roles across industries and across stages of organizational maturity. We’ve talked previously about what’s involved in taking a company public from the EA perspective, and in this episode with Katherine Estep, who currently supports the CFO at Udemy with executive operations, we discuss the specific responsibilities of an EA working in a publicly traded company. Katherine joined Udemy the month they announced their IPO and has been supporting their CFO ever since the company became publicly traded on NASDAQ. We're excited to share what she has to say about the EA role after a company has gone public!
You may be familiar with the term “war room” or “situation room” as it relates to the Presidential Cabinet where the President and his advisors retreat to strategize on highly sensitive or critical matters. Today Rachel Tan joins us to discuss the role an Executive Assistant plays in a war room in the context of a business. While Rachel currently supports the CEO & President of Benchling with strategic programs, she also has experience supporting Chief Marketing Officers and working closely with Communications and PR, meaning she’s no stranger to being involved in addressing newsworthy and current events, and even crises. Our goal in this episode is to help EAs navigate any type of "war room" situation with sensitivity, grace and professionalism.
We know you're excited for Part Two of our conversation with Chynna Clayton, former Executive Assistant to Michelle Obama and current Founder of Matriarch Made Development - and we're happy to deliver!
Join us as we delve into Chynna’s formative years that helped shape her into the person she is today, learn all that went into supporting a celebrity and someone as high profile and adored as former First Lady Michelle Obama, as well as Chynna’s three life takeaways and lessons from her time with Mrs. Obama. (I’m not giving anything away by letting you know one of them is knitting!)
You can learn more about Chynna’s consultancy, Matriarch Made Development, where she focuses on developing the talent and potential of administrative professionals in corporate and non-profit organizations by visiting https://www.chynnaclayton.com
We are thrilled to release part one of our conversation with none other than Chynna Clayton who spent over a decade as the Executive Assistant to the legendary Michelle Obama, first in her capacity as FLOTUS, then for another 6 years after Mrs. Obama departed the White House.
Chynna's story has been featured in Vogue and Oprah Daily, so we are especially grateful that she agreed to share her wisdom & experiences with the REACH community. Don't miss this opportunity to learn from an individual who has literally worked at the highest echelon of demand, expectation, intensity, and discretion and where the stakes couldn’t have been higher. Plus, this is just part one, so be sure to join us in two weeks for the rest of our conversation!
Be sure to also check out Chynna's consultancy, Matriarch Made Development, where she focuses on developing the talent and potential of administrative professionals in corporate and non-profit organizations. Visit www.chynnaclayton.com for more information.
This episode on goal setting was not only requested by our listeners, but it’s a timely one given we’re at the top of a new year and hopefully full of inspiration and motivation to achieve some great things in 2023! Today we’ll be discussing some of the material covered in our "Becoming a Chief of Staff" e-course, specifically how to apply the SMART goals framework to your work as an Executive Assistant. This episode is full of practical content that you won't want to miss!
If you’ve been contemplating investing in the e-course, this episode might give you the motivation to officially sign up! You can do so at https://courses.mavenrec.com/courses/becoming-a-chief-of-staff. Use code MAVENLOVESEAS for 15% off through the month of February.
We’ve had a wide range of Executive Assistants on our program who support business owners, celebrities, government officials and even magicians, but never have we featured an EA who supports an influencer – until now! Katie Hobson is the Senior Executive Assistant to husband and wife team Michael & Lauryn Bosstick, lifestyle brand influencers, podcasters, business owners of Dear Media & The Skinny Confidential and hosts of the Him & Her podcast. Obviously, the world of influencing is a new and hot industry that greatly impacts all things social media, consumerism, shopping, cooking, decorating, knowledge gathering, you name it. In this episode, Katie provides us with a behind-the-scenes look into what goes on in the lives of influencers and how she as an Executive Assistant shows up to support them in a unique and meaningful way.
Check out Katie's "Day in the Life" video on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cj8fNI4ABIK/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
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