assistants who broke the mould
TRANSCRIPT
Before I kick off with a li1le look at a few inspira5on PAs who all broke the mould in one way or another I want to take a minute to talk to you about the Assist Conference and why I set this event up. Firstly, I believe that we do one of the world’s trickiest jobs – we have to juggle mul5ple tasks, mul5ple personali5es – which are oFen found in the same person And different percep5ons about our role and the industry. We have all heard the ‘just an assistant’ line and most of us have probably said this about ourselves at some point. I want this conference to signal the death knoll for that flipping saying! We are professional women who have a difficult and actually incredibly important job and from this point on we must believe in ourselves so that our Execu5ves, colleagues and peers take us seriously. So how do we start this process – well I think a good place to start is to look to our fore-‐sisters. The women who were assistants but did things a li1le differently. Now we could just sit here and watch Working Girl and 9-‐5 and then head off for a drink but I’ve found a few non-‐fic5onal accounts of women who have broke the assistant mould.
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Last year I was in Memphis. During my visit I went to Sun Studios which is the place where Johnny Cash, Karl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and the king himself – Elvis Presley all recorded their famous tracks. One of the stories I absolutely loved was about the woman you can see in the picture. Her name was Marion Keisker and she was the secretary to the studio owner – Sam Philips. So the story goes: She was alone in the studio the day that a young Elvis Presley walked in to record a few songs. She asked the boy, “what kind of singer are you?” and he said, “I sing all kinds”. She then asked, “Who do you sound like?”. He said, “I don’t sound like nobody”. Now usually the studio manager would cut the tracks but on this occasion Marion agreed to do the recording. As you can imagine Marion was impressed with Elvis’s voice.. And probably his looks helped!... and decided to men5on the young talent to her boss. At the 5me the studio had enough ar5st and Sam Philips wasn’t interested in Marion’s new find. With much persistence from Marion, Sam finally agreed to let Elvis come back into the study to record another song. This 5me Sam was impressed and the rest, as they say, is history! What I love about this story is that Marion took it upon herself to record Elvis even though it was normally her manager that did it. Elvis might never have been discovered if it wasn’t for her confidence. In fact, a few years later Elvis and Marion bumped into each other and Elvis said, “I don’t know whether to kiss you or salute! We would not be having a press conference if it weren’t for this Lady”.
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So we all have probably owned a piece of clothing by Donna Karan or DKNY in at some point or other, but not many of you will know that Donna started as an assistant to the designer Anne Klein. Her rise from assistant to owner of a global brand is pre1y drama5c. She was due to go onto maternity leave when her boss was taken ill and rushed to hospital. While Anne was in hospital Donna took over the planning of the pre-‐fall fashion shows. Sadly Anne Klein passed away on the same day Donna gave birth to her first child. But as they say – the show must go on -‐ so Donna organised the rest of the fashion show from her bed in the maternity ward.
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This is Karen Kaplan, the CEO of adver5sing giant Hill Holiday. She started out at Hill Holiday as their recep5onist in 1982! During the her first week on the job her co-‐worker and more senior recep5onist assured her that she was the lowest of the low – saying that she was even lower than the post room guy! Apparently it was all very \The Devil Wears Prada’. But this didn’t phase her and instead she took on an ‘I’ll show you mantra’. She quickly progressed from the recep5onist – lowest of the low – to assistant despite the fact she wasn’t actually qualified for the posi5on. To catch up she spent evenings and weekends learning the ropes. She worked her backside off and was rewarded by having her job 5tle changed to Account Manager. From there she could progress up the management roles un5l she was finally named CEO in 2013. Her advice for other assistants that want to move up the career ladder is fantas5c -‐ She said “I raised my hand for every opportunity. And I never let the fact that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing stop me.”
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Last but no means least. This is Ursula Brown, the CEO of Xerox. Ursula was working as an intern for Xerox when she was asked to a1end a work-‐life discussion where she raised the issue of diversity in the workplace. Apparently her opinion was quite forcefully communicated and the following day she was called into see a senior Execu5ve of Xerox. Expec5ng to be reprimanded or fired she was instead asked to be his assistant. Ini5ally she thought ‘why would I want to do that’ but once she was assured the job would involved more than the tradi5onal secretaries tasks she excepted. She was expected to a1end mee5ngs with her boss including board mee5ngs. Board mee5ngs at Xerox were set up so that the Execs sat round the board table and their assistants sat off to the side. During one such mee5ng the CEO was discussing the hiring policy and that departments were hiring too many staff. Ursula, ever the curious, raised her hand and asked ‘if the CEO can’t stop staff hiring staff – who can?’ Again the next day she was called into see the CEO and thought this might be her last straw. But instead she was being poached by the CEO to be his new Execu5ve Assistant .
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So the reason I picked these four ladies is because they all prove it can be done. It isn’t easy, it takes 5me but assistants can move up within their organisa5ons and they can achieve extraordinary things. They also personify the three key themes of the Assist Conference
• The need to change other people’s behaviours and your own.
• The need to be proac5ve.
• The importance of having your career goals, always, at the front of your mind. We will return to these key themes throughout the day but for now I want you to think about what you can achieve in your own careers and how you can move on up!
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