The Modern-Day Assistant Virtual Asia/Pacific

A key skill for every assistant is how to listen to understand rather than listen to answer. In this session, we will look at how misunderstandings occur, why failure to communicate properly can lead to toxic environments filled with politics and competing egos, and how failing to use emotional intelligence properly results in living at a low level of effectiveness, which ensures we will never achieve our greatest aspirations.

The relationship between an Assistant and their Executives is crucial to a company’s success but with the average age that most Managers get training sitting at 42, many Executives have never had training in how to manage their Assistants. It, therefore, falls to the Assistant to train their Executives how to use their skills to best advantage themselves and the company.

In this session we will explore:

• Why influential leadership skills are crucial to the role of an
• Strategically managing your Executive(s) and Key Stakeholders
• Developing the business partnership with your Executive
• Proactive vs Reactive Support
• Making the transition from support to strategic business

But what if you have more than one manager? In the new role, most Assistants are managing at least two people. It is challenging enough to work well with ONE Executive, but if you are working for two – or MORE – the challenge is stressful at best. Are you dealing with two or more workloads, managing multiple communications and schedules, multiple projects and more?

We will also look at practical tips for productivity and time management that will ensure that you can prioritize, juggle, and support your numerous Executives effectively and without stress.

Much has been made in recent times of the emergence of the Assistant as a Strategic Business Partner. The term is THE buzz word in the industry. But how do you become strategic? What does it mean? How do you change your day-to-day role to become the Assistant that your Executive needs to deliver at the highest levels? In this keynote session, Lucy Brazier will look at how to develop your business acumen to best support your executive and what skills are required to futureproof your career in a post-COVID / AI world.

Learning objectives:

• Knowing is different from understanding! Learn how to understand your
• Explore what you need to know to support your Executive at the highest
• Understand your executive’s personality and learning styles to ensure maximum return of investment from your

The Assistant’s role is to ensure that their Executive(s) are as effective as they can possibly be. In order to do this, their own productivity and systems must be operating at the highest levels of efficiently.

In this session we will look at systems and procedures including:

• setting boundaries
• email
• diary management
• the myth of multitasking
• procrastination
• time management

For many assistants, working in the office from Monday to Friday will be a thing of the past. As offices reopen, many are turning to a hybrid model that allows people to work in the office some days and at home for others. While being able to work remotely offers more flexibility, there’s going to be a learning curve, for both companies and their employees.

In this interactive session, we will look at new ways of working, both in terms of your partnership with your executive and making your team feel supported and comfortable. We will cover what a successful hybrid work reality looks like, collaborative working practices, how to align days with your manager’s schedule and other colleagues you work frequently with, what the potential unclear implications could be and how to make the most of your time both in the office and at home.

We will also discuss what the unknowns are that concern you, how to implement systems and workflows to maximise your time wherever you are working from, and why it is so important to be proactive when it comes to communicating, collaborating, and providing status updates.

• Find out what turning to a hybrid model means
• Learn how to partner with your executive(s) with the new ways of hybrid working
• Implement systems and workflows to maximize your time
• Help your team feel supported and comfortable and form collaborative working practices

Project Management seems to be overtaking the Executive Assistant’s world these days. Whether or not your company calls it “Project Management” and deliberately applies its terminology and principles doesn’t matter; the reality is that Project Management is now part of every Assistant’s working life.

We will look at:

• The difference between routine work and a project
• Managing stakeholders and their expectations
• Understanding how to prepare for and plan a
• Understanding how to monitor a
• Understanding the purpose and ways of evaluating a project

We will then organize an event from start to finish using the techniques we have used to determine ROI and manage the project from a budget.

With the changes to the role, many assistants are taking on more supervisory roles: Executives can help empower their assistants by making it clear that the assistant has real authority. The message the executive should convey is, “I trust this person to represent me and make decisions.”

This session will visit some classic and brand-new decision-making and problem-solving processes to ensure the Assistant has the confidence to look at all the options and weigh up the alternatives.

And finally, we will talk about how you achieve all of this without blowing a fuse.

• Why is managing your stress important?
• What are the signs?
• Work: Life Balance
• How to avoid burnout – especially when working from