With over 22,000 first-level contacts on business networking site LinkedIn – and a three-level network extending to more than 36 million – Angela Garry is the most connected person in the world with the job titles of ‘personal assistant’ and ‘PA trainer’.
Angela is a fully qualified teacher with a BSc(Ed) and QTS from the University of Exeter, and has worked in administrative roles in England and Ireland since 1991, with 18 years of this in personal assistant roles. She has worked in two global banks, three universities, a sixth-form college, a water and sewerage utility, an engineering consultancy, an international seaport, a government-sponsored employment training company and an executive search company, plus her most recent role for over five years as the Principal’s PA at a brand new academy for 11–19 year olds in Nottingham, England.
Shortlisted for both the UK Head teachers’ PA of the Year and The Times/Hays PA of the Year awards in 2011, Angela has combined her teaching and PA skills to quickly become a renowned trainer, and is now a leading expert in educational administration training.
Angela has been delivering highly successful training and networking events and seminars for PAs since 2010 around the world – including the UK and Ireland, Norway, Switzerland, Russia, United Arab Emirates, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong and China – offering training courses to a variety of audiences in both the corporate and educational spheres.
Since 2012, she has been a leading educational administration trainer, creating and delivering training programmes specifically designed for educational PAs, and has worked with more than 350 Head teachers’ PAs and administrative staff from over 250 international schools and independent schools worldwide. To date, Angela has trained, coached, mentored, presented to and worked with more than 2,500 PAs, EAs, secretaries and administrators.
In April 2012, Angela created her training company, Pica Aurum, (Latin for ‘Golden Magpie’, hence the magpie in the company logo) with the aim of helping everybody find and reach their potential. Through Pica Aurum she offers training and mentoring worldwide, together with career coaching, life coaching, counselling and psychotherapy in her local area.
She is the owner, editor and writer-in-chief for NAHPA, the National Association of Head teachers’ PAs magazine – the UK’s leading publication for PAs and administrators working in education – and has also been a regular contributor to several other leading PA magazines, including Executive Secretary, PA Enterprise, PA Life and Executive PA.
Angela Garry is currently available for bookings worldwide.
Since “Brave PAs” came out in March I have also self-published my first therapeutic fiction book “Missing Mark” for children and young adults, and I’m almost finished on a fiction book “Sandy the Draycott Scarecrow”. I’m planning on these being part of a series of at least 15 books under my own PICA BOOKS branding, with a range of topics and guest authors – some books being purely fictional for fun and learning, and others having an additional therapeutic element to help children with issues that are affecting them.
In addition, I’m halfway through writing the corporate / industry companion book to “Brave PAs”, which is titled “The PA / EA Circus” – with the aim of publishing this summer.
NAHPA magazine’s membership of PAs and admins in schools is growing, and plans are in place to launch UNIPA for PAs and admins working in Universities in early 2016.
I’m planning on being very active in the field of media and publications in the future!