Paula Moio | Time Family Office Ltd
An accomplished bilingual Executive Assistant, self-motivated professional and highly experienced in providing support at executive-level.
She was born in Luanda, the capital of Angola, raised in Lisbon but has been calling London home for the past 22 years.
After 10 years building a solid foundation for her career in Luanda working for several multinational companies, she is blessed with the birth of her twin daughters and decides to take the long road of emigration.
In London she reignites and truly embraces her passion, advocating for a change of perceptions and recognition of the PA role as respectable and credible as any other profession.
She works tirelessly to raise the profile of the Admin Profession in today’s demanding market alongside a likeminded network of professionals determined to break barriers.
Passionate about personal and professional development, Paula is always prepared to go the extra mile, share learning resources and determined to keep up-to-date with new career trends.
Perseverance, interpersonal and organizational skills are to be her key strengths, and she has an excellent aptitude to work at all levels, backgrounds and cross-cultures.
In September 2016 Paula designed and ran a two-day workshop for 60 Executive Assistants in her home country, Angola. It was the first of its kind organized for EAs of some of the most important national and foreign companies operating in the country.
A Fellow at the EPAA, a UK based guild. A IMA-UK and SW1 PA Network member.
In 2013 she was bestowed with a BBC News Award for her outstanding contribution to BBC News.
For 15 years Paula worked as a Personal Assistant at executive level at the BBC World Service. Her reputation got her headhunted for an Executive Assistant position at Time Family Office, the international private equity company where she’s been working since January 2016.
Sandra Sullivan | KPMG UK
Melanie Sheehy | Citation
I have a very varied life with many strings to my bow. My main ‘work’ role is EA to the Chief Exec of Citation Ltd which is a private equity backed business in Wilmslow. I have worked with my current boss for 6 years moving businesses with him as he progressed in his career. My first PA role was 20 years ago, starting out at AstraZeneca and from there I have worked for the Co-operative bank and LateRooms, learning the role along the way.
Along side my role as EA to Chris Morris, I am also the Chapter Admin for the Young Presidents Organisation Pennine Chapter, which is a global network for Chief Executives. For this role I support 47 Chief Execs by supporting the website, events, networking and training.
My main passion though is the Manchester PA Network, a non-for-profit organisation established to bring together like-minded PA’s, EA’s Secretaries and Support staff to create and build long-lasting business relationships and friendships whilst raining money for The Christie. We have currently raised £75,000 and have pledged to raise £100,000 by 2020
In 2015 we organised the inaugural Manchester PA Awards and we are now in the process of organising the awards for the third year running as the success has been phenomenal.
I am also lucky enough to sit on the board for EPAA, Executive and Personal Assistants Association. This appeals to my second passion which is to support and mentor PA’s coming into the business to help them achieve the best of their ability as well as raising the profile of PA’s across the UK.
Outside of my work life my ‘real’ job is mum to 4 year old twin boys and a 20yr old step-daughter. We live in Hale with my boys, daughter, husband, cat, Eric-Cat-ona and puppy Bonnie
Jane Brazzill | PwC
Katie McEwan | Ann Summers
Katie McEwan has been Executive Support Manager to Jacqueline Gold CBE, CEO of Ann Summers for 9 years.
Before taking the role for Jacqueline, Katie had quite a colourful career in television and film working her way up the ladder from production runner, to production assistant and finally production secretary. During her time in television and film, Katie was fortunate enough to work on a number of award-winning productions, including Waking the Dead and The Diary of Anne Frank for BBC 1 and the international box office success, Run Fat Boy Run starring Simon Pegg and directed by David Schwimmer.
Katie’s role working for Jacqueline is quite extensive and has grown in recent years to include people management, business project management and also the leadership of the Ann Summers Executive Support Team.
In the last few years, Katie has been incredibly fortunate to present at a number of conferences most recently including the Hays PA Network, the PA Hub, Manchester PA Network, ACE’s Scotland, the Office Management and PA Conference & OFFICE, as well as proudly judging the Executive PA Magazine awards in 2012 and the Hays High Achieving PA of the Year award 2013. In 2014 Katie was awarded the SecsintheCity award for Social Networking PA of the Year and finally, in late 2015 Katie took up the post of Chair of the Executive & Personal Assistant Association (EPAA) General Advisory Board.
Elizabeth Mendes Da Silva | Barclaycard
I grew up in Westminster, with my mother, a cleaner from Portugal and my two elder sisters. I went to St Peter’s Eaton Sq School where I was also a server at the Church for eleven years, and still sit on the Parish Committee Council to date. I studied Piano for twelve years, and am very passionate about Art, choosing this as my subject of choice at Southampton University. For secondary, I attended Lady Margaret’s all-girls school in Parsons Green.
Whilst studying, I did PR work within the club industry (unpaid), and learnt the process of working to tight deadlines/ targets and marketing. It was doing this, and working in close proximity to the owners that made me want to become a Personal Assistant, as I demonstrated strong organisational skills and a keenness of multitasking and working under pressure.
I have just moved to Barclaycard as a PA with Planning Support, as a stretch role, after spending three years in Barclays Internal Audit working as a PA to nine Portfolio Heads, and a PMO for SRP. Before starting at Barclays, I took two years out to have my son Alexander (now six), as a single mother I still found the time to volunteer for the local National Childcare Trust to assist with fundraising. I have sat on the D&I Council within BIA as an assistant and now am helping out with the Initiative 10 in Barclaycard.
I have just taken the Agile Foundation Course, in Project Management, and am looking to develop my knowledge further with my studies to reflect my current role, and ambitions to further my career within the Corporation. Alongside these, I am passionate about keeping fit, and have just started a blog which tales about the importance of keeping a healthy/ balanced lifestyle.
Emily Walker | Liverpool John Moores University
Bianca Angelico | Sodexo
My career began five years ago when I moved from South Africa to pursue a career in London. This started with a 3 year position as an EA at Unwired Ventures Ltd, led by Philip Ross. Within five months into the EA role, to build out my events experience, I took on the Events Assistant / Conference Producer roles and delivered 5 global events per year, with the most notable being WORKTECH Berlin 2014 and FutuRetail 2014, both of which achieved more than 110% of target revenue, and broke new ground in audience engagement.
Leveraging this success I sought out an opportunity as Partner Marketing Executive at Condeco that would allow me to lead on more events in Europe and benefit a wider audience and company. After 9 months I was promoted to Events Manager & Executive Assistant to the MD of EMEA which in the following 2 years I became deeply embedded in the FM / workplace industry through being the Deputy Chair of WIFM within BIFM, the Communication Leader for YMF and the Young Leader Lead in programmed events for CoreNet UK. My enthusiasm in these roles, and the difference I am having, saw me being recognised as a Young Leader by Tomorrow Meets Today.
I have a passion for making a difference in people’s lives through being a powerhouse for a brand, and couldn’t refuse to join the Sodexo team in supporting the CEO of Healthcare in UK & Ireland to connect its 8,000 strong workforce through reinvigorating the internal communications strategy, repositiong our vision and mission statements and raising the profile of the CEO through social media. This current role is a key step in me achieving my goal of becoming a CEO of an organisation.
Debra Jacobs | RBS
Debra started her varied career in the hotel industry, before moving into Conference & Banqueting. In the years that followed, Debra moved to a corporate environment organising in-house events and activities before finally moving to work for event management agencies. In these roles, Debra was responsible for project managing multiple global conferences and events for clients within the pharmaceutical industry; working to tight deadlines, constantly changing logistics, client demands, budgets and environments.
After 10 years in the events industry and to achieve a more sustainable work life balance, Debra changed career direction transitioning to a PA role.
For the past 10 years, Debra has worked with senior HR leaders across a variety of industries including Financial Services, Insurance and Facilities Management. Debra has been at RBS for 7 years, working within Group HR Functions. Her current role is in Learning & Development.
Debra is both Founder & Chair of the PA Network at RBS. The aim of the network is to bring the PAs together from across the Bank; to learn from one another, to share experiences, information and best practice and offer career development and training. The network helps to reinforce the value of the PA role and will help support the banks with the ambition to be number one for customer service, trust and advocacy by 2020. From a standing start in January 2016 the network now has over 530 members from across the UK & Ireland.
Outside of work, Debra is a Trustee for Saving Macedonia Strays, an animal rescue charity based in Macedonia. Debra helps to raise awareness for the organisation and the work they do, as well as fundraise, run their social media outlets and support with the rehoming of the animals within Macedonia, the UK & across Europe.
Anne-Lyse Hardesty | Worldwide101
Business support specialist or more commonly known as Virtual Assistant (VA) with Worldwide101.
Anne-lyse grew up in the south west of France and studied International Business. After working in Brazil and Australia, she decided to put her luggage down in Dallas, Texas. She worked as an executive assistant for a Beer equipment importer and then for one of the largest US Beverage distributors in the Marketing and Sales department. She gained 8+ years experience in the Drinks industry.
While moving to yet a different country (the UK) and pregnant with her second daughter, she decided that family was her priority but at the same time didn’t want to give up a career. Becoming a remote executive assistant became an opportunity and started her journey in 2015 in joining the premium virtual assistant team, Worldwide101. She is now supporting remotely 5 entrepreneurs based in US and Europe in building and growing their business. The flexibility and freedom of this position is priceless. In addition, she is a learner and curious, so being part of the Worldwide101 team has been so wonderful. While working with her clients, she has been discovering completely different worlds and the tasks can be diversified, from doing customer service for an American dog potty company to managing a freelance team for a French infopreneur!
Anne-lyse is as well part of and contributing to the group « We are virtual assistants » aimed at spreading the word to join the virtual assistant world to other moms !