I don’t have a flashy title on LinkedIn. It simply reads: Executive Assistant to the CEO. But inside a unicorn startup, that role feels less like an assistant and more like mission control.
My day doesn’t begin with coffee. It begins with clarity.
Before the CEO steps into the office—or logs onto the first call—I’ve already scanned investor emails, filtered Slack chaos, realigned meetings across three time zones, and quietly eliminated at least one “urgent” request that wasn’t urgent at all. In a hyper-growth company, everything feels critical. My job is to know what actually is.
Most people think I manage a calendar. I manage momentum.
If the CEO spends 45 minutes in the wrong meeting, it’s not just time lost. It’s a product launch delayed, a hiring decision postponed, an investor follow-up missed. So I architect each day like a strategy deck: deep work blocks for thinking, sharp windows for decisions, breathing room for the unexpected. And in a unicorn, the unexpected is guaranteed.
I sit in rooms where valuations are negotiated, acquisitions are whispered about, and pivots are decided in a single conversation. I don’t dominate the discussion. I observe. I connect dots. I anticipate friction before it surfaces. You learn quickly that influence isn’t about volume—it’s about preparation.
There’s also the human side. Founders carry pressure most people never see. When headlines celebrate billion-dollar valuations, they don’t show the sleepless nights before a board meeting or the quiet anxiety before a major announcement. Part of my role is protecting not just the CEO’s schedule, but their focus and energy.
Being an EA at this level isn’t about booking flights or scheduling calls. It’s about creating leverage. It’s about turning chaos into structure, noise into priorities, and ambition into execution.
In a unicorn racing toward its next milestone, speed matters. But direction matters more.
And sometimes, the person helping steer that direction is the one you rarely notice—sitting just outside the spotlight, holding the map.