UK Executive Assistant for Busy Founder

I run an accounting and M&A advisory group and I am involved in a fair amount beyond it, including writing, speaking, and a regular podcast, so my diary and inbox rarely sit still. I am looking for an experienced executive assistant to work with me on a daily part time basis, taking the steady stream of small things off my plate so I can spend my time where it actually counts. The core of the role is straightforward enough. I need help booking travel and hotels, keeping my diary organised and ahead of itself, and triaging my inbox so the important things surface and the noise gets handled. Where I really need you, though, is in the bit most people get wrong. I am genuinely busy, which means I will not always remember to hand things over, and if you wait quietly for me to delegate, very little will reach you. I need someone confident enough to come and find the work, to chase me for what you need, and to keep nagging me, politely but firmly, to give you more. The assistants who succeed with me are the ones who take initiative and make themselves indispensable, not the ones who wait to be asked. I will be honest with you, because it saves us both time. I have worked with three assistants in the past and none of them stuck. Looking back, the common thread was that they were too passive. They did what was asked and no more, so the load never really shifted off me and the arrangement quietly fizzled out. I am telling you this not to put you off but because I want someone who reads it and thinks, that is exactly the gap I fill. If you are proactive, organised, and the sort of person who takes ownership of someone else's chaos and quietly turns it into order, we will get on well. A few practicals. I am UK based and I want someone working to UK hours, ideally UK based too, partly for the overlap and partly because some of what crosses my desk is confidential. You will sign a confidentiality agreement, and because parts of my work involve client information, I will be careful and deliberate about what you have access to at the start, widening it as we build trust. That is not a lack of faith in you, it is simply how I have to operate. Strong written English matters, because you will be drafting on my behalf and it needs to sound like me. I would rather start with a short paid trial period than a long commitment on either side, so we can both see how we work together before we settle into a rhythm. If this sounds like the kind of role you thrive in, tell me in your application about a time you took work off a busy principal without being asked, and how you kept them on track. That single example will tell me more than a list of tools ever could.