People often assume my job is about managing calendars and booking flights. That’s part of it—but being an Executive Assistant to the CEO of a unicorn company is really about managing time, trust, and tension, all at once.
My day starts before most meetings do. I scan emails for urgency, conflicts, and subtext. What looks like a simple meeting request is often a strategic decision in disguise. Who gets time with the CEO, when, and for how long matters more than most people realize. Time is the most valuable currency in a fast-growing company, and I help protect it.
Working this close to leadership means seeing the company without filters. I witness pressure that never makes it into all-hands meetings—investor calls that run long, decisions that affect thousands of employees, moments of doubt between back-to-back wins. My role is to be steady when things move fast and calm when everything feels urgent.
There’s an emotional intelligence required for this job that doesn’t show up on a job description. You learn how your CEO thinks, what stresses them, what drains or energizes them. You anticipate needs before they’re voiced. Some days that means reorganizing an entire schedule in ten minutes. Other days it means knowing when not to interrupt.
In a unicorn environment, change is constant. Priorities shift. Teams scale overnight. Processes that worked last quarter suddenly break. As an EA, you become the quiet connector—linking departments, smoothing friction, and keeping momentum intact without stepping into the spotlight.
The job demands discretion, resilience, and adaptability. There are long hours and invisible wins. When everything runs smoothly, no one notices—and that’s usually a sign you’ve done your job well.
What makes it fulfilling is impact. I may not be writing code or closing deals, but I help create the conditions for those things to happen. From the other side of the calendar, I see how leadership really works—and how much it relies on trust behind the scenes.