A Day in the Life of an Executive Assistant at Boost VC

It's a fun role because no two days are the same. If your days are the same, I would recommend getting another job.

This applies to any position, not just executive assisting. I'll share my broad experience, not just from Boost VC, but all my executive assisting combined. I'll even compare it to teaching, which is both fair and unfair as they're very different.

I've learned that if days are looking the same, you're not challenging yourself or improving. You want to be able to upskill and level up, adding as much value as you get back.

I've been in positions where the routine was the same every morning: unlock the office, turn on lights, start the coffee machine. Then, sit at your computer and stare at the calendar for 15 minutes, reminding yourself of the many meetings planned for that day. You're praying nothing changes, but knowing someone will probably cancel or shift, and you'll have to deal with it. Those are the somewhat negative aspects of the job.

Executive assisting is definitely... Before I became one, I had an idea from being an administrative assistant or office manager, which can be repetitive and mundane. But for me, at Boost VC, Mondays and Tuesdays are in-office days at San Mateo. The days are somewhat similar in how they start.

I feel fortunate because I work for a fun guy. He's very all over the place, and we're complete opposites. He's like a tornado spinning, and I'm trying to get him to sit down and sign papers. Then he'll want to play Super Smash Bros. with his co-founder. I'll ask where he is, and it's already lunchtime. I'll have to remind him he's supposed to be working.

It's stuff like that where no two days are the same. Sometimes the team will go out to lunch and end up spending an extra hour talking about my boss's tiny dinosaur theory. It's great, really fun.

Executive assisting is such a vast scale, it's hard to give an accurate picture. At the very bottom of the scale, it can be very repetitive: go into the office, check emails, schedule, schedule more, check more emails. Then you talk to other executive assistants about what challenges they're facing, they vent for two hours, and you go home and repeat.

I've been in those places. Then you can come to a place like mine, where you might meet a founder for lunch who's coming into your office. They're someone you've invested in, and their company's mission is wild. For example, one of our companies is called Prognosis, and they have dogs that sniff out cancer.

Dogs sniffing cancer, before humans even know they have it. A dog just sniffs, and it's like, "Yeah, cancer." You're amazed they can catch it so early. It's wild. We're in deep tech, so we have the most sci-fi, crazy things.

As for everyday life as an executive assistant, a handful of factors are key. The biggest is probably the person you're working for. Second, I'd argue the sector you're in. Being in venture capital, I see so many things I didn't know existed, and people are bringing them to life. It blows my mind.

It also depends on the people around you in your work environment. That can really change a day in the life of an executive assistant. For example, I was a personal assistant for a real estate agent, and I'm also a licensed realtor. That was a whole other, very different experience.

It can be content-heavy depending on the sector, but essentially, the flow of the day for an executive assistant is about 80% the same: it's about keeping people organized. The other 20% is where you gain the most energy or feel the most defeated. It's multi-pronged.