Executive Office Insights – Details, episodes & analysis

144: With extensive experience at some of the biggest companies in retail, food & beverage, and technology, Maggie has stepped into new roles, new industries, and new businesses and transformed teams and businesses from the ground up over and over again.

In her most recent corporate role working as Chief of Staff leader to a President at a Fortune 40 company — a multibillion-dollar business with 5,000+ employees — Maggie built the president’s Chief of Staff model from the ground up. In doing so, she created a highly successful team, drove major organizational efficiencies, and implemented executive back-office processes and structure that will be in place for years to come.

Maggie has 20 years’ experience leading large teams and has spent her career focused on both the customer and employee experience. Working for Nordstrom early in her career solidified her passion for customer experience, where she spent 6 years, first as a Buyer working in 5 different buying offices, and then with the Technology team, honing Business Process and Project Management skills building user tools.

While working at Nordstrom, Maggie went to graduate school in 2015. During the MBA program at the University of Washington’s Foster Business School, she was recruited for an ultra-competitive Executive Development Program with T-Mobile. Here she led a district of stores to success in an industry she’d never worked in and a city that was new to her, presenting her business to company leaders every month. She then moved into a Retail Strategy role working on Human Strategy for new store concepts, building on her digital presentation and storytelling skills. When COVID hit and retail was shuttered, Maggie led the COVID Response initiative for the retail organization, mobilizing 26k retail employees to work in the back of closed stores through Virtual and Telesales pilot programs. From here, she moved into the Chief of Staff position for the President of the B2B organization.

As the owner of Nova Chief of Staff, Maggie leads the Chief of Staff Certification course and coaches Chiefs of Staff. She is also a fractional Chief of Staff consultant, focused on helping mission-driven, for-profit startup founders scale their businesses quickly. In her spare time, Maggie loves spending time outside with her husband, their animals, and their 1-year-old, Max!

Links:

 🔴 Watch the Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/eeBrtoZNYOY

http://www.novachiefofstaff.com

http://www.novachiefofstaff.com/syllabus

http://www.novachiefofstaff.com/shop (AI course will be here)

www.linkedin.com/in/maggie-olson-cos

Diana’s CoS training: https://www.haufe-akademie.de/35353

Diana’s CoS certification: https://www.haufe-akademie.de/36524

Diana on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diana-brandl/

The Future Assistant Newsletter: https://the-socialista-projects.com/#newsletter

Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the-socialista-projects

Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3qBSDjTfYOG2x6qos7dKkS

Podcast on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-future-assistant/id1493106661

143: Empathetic, strategic, and meticulous about the details, Chynna Clayton has built a career enabling some of the world’s most influential leaders to excel in high stress environments.

Chynna is the founder and CEO of Matriarch Made Development, a consulting firm that centers around helping companies and organizations develop high performing administrative teams, identify and address overall operating structure and event logistics inefficiencies and further cultivate assistant’s talents.

Named in honor of the four generations of maternal women who have paved the way for her to mature into the woman she has become today, Matriarch Made was founded on the principles that enabled Chynna to build a distinguished career in personal, government, and corporate environments.

Raised by a single mother in Miami, Florida, on the outskirts of Liberty City. Chynna studied Event Management and Political Science with a minor in Business at the University of Florida. A proud Florida gator, Chynna’s time at UF helped her to gain exposure to event management as a White House intern during the Obama administration. Upon graduation, Chynna spent years supporting the Obama’s advance logistical teams until leaving her administrative role at The Walt Disney Company to ultimately become the “body-woman” of former First Lady Michelle Obama. In this capacity, Chynna helped Mrs. Obama connect with communities around the world. She ensured every detail of Mrs. Obama’s personal and public facing events were executed flawlessly, directing teams who coordinated Mrs. Obama’s domestic and international engagements.

At the conclusion of the Obama administration, Chynna was retained by the personal office of Barack and Michelle Obama as their Director of Travel and Event Operations, where she continued to help manage the personal obligations of their family while continuing to oversee the coordination of Mrs. Obama’s engagements.

Now at Matriarch Made Development, Chynna helps leaders build core competencies such as but not limited to organization, teamwork, communication, problem solving, accountability and composure in administrative and executive teams. From executive training and coaching to equipping organizations with tools such as scheduling systems, templates, tactics, processes/procedures, events logistics guidance; Matriarch Made helps leading organizations build a systems approach to tackling the inefficiencies that stifle overall potential.

Chynna was most recently highlighted in Michelle Obama’s newly released book, “The Light We Carry.” She has written for O Magazine; been featured in Essence, the Miami Herald, the University of Florida Health and Human Performance Magazine, the Netflix Documentary “Becoming,” and the Michelle Obama Spotify Podcast. Chynna strives every day to be an inspiration for young girls, especially those who have experienced similar life challenges. Chynna resides in Washington, DC with her wife Katina Hoyles.

Links:

Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/2FWphgr6AbA 

Chynna's Website: https://www.chynnaclayton.com/
Chynna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chynna-clayton-248b145b/

Diana on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diana-brandl/
The Future Assistant Newsletter: https://the-socialista-projects.com/#newsletter

Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3qBSDjTfYOG2x6qos7dKkS
Podcast on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-future-assistant/id1493106661

134: Jael Olivia Sauter ist als Executive-Assistentin bei ZEAM tätig und studiert Soziologie und Volkswirtschaft an der Universität Zürich.

ZEAM gilt als führende Agentur für die Generation Z im DACH-Raum und berät Unternehmen wie Porsche und Allianz. Seit anderthalb Jahren unterstützt Jael Olivia die beiden Gründer von ZEAM in verschiedenen Bereichen und übernimmt Verantwortung.

Als Ausgleich widmet sie sich in ihrer Freizeit gerne dem Sport, darunter Fußball und Kraftsport.

Verlinkung: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jael-olivia-sauter-b4783a205/

Mehr Infos: https://the-socialista-projects.com/

044: Nicole Zieger treibt vor allem ihre Leidenschaft an, Menschen auf ihrem Entwicklungsweg zu unterstützen und mit ihnen gemeinsam anstehende Veränderungen erfolgreich zu meistern.

Genau diese Leidenschaft lässt sie in ihren verschiedenen Tätigkeiten aufblühen. Als Head of Change Management & Transformation in der Unternehmensberatung führt sie ihr selbstorganisiertes Team, steht Kunden rund um Veränderungsprozessen zur Seite und hat gelernt, einen Unternehmensbereich aufzubauen.

In ihrem Podcast Leadership Impuls gibt sie angehenden und jungen Nachwuchsführungskräften Einblicke in ihre Erfahrungen als Führungskraft, stellt verschiedene Theorien vor und lädt interessante Gäste ein.

Zudem teilt sie als Dozentin, Mentorin und Speakerin unverblümt ihre Erfahrungen, Fehler und Wissen. Bei ihren Aktivitäten und Vorhaben lässt sie einen ganz besonderen Blickwinkel mit einfließen: Das aufgebaute Wissen über neuronale Prozesse und unsere Gehirnaktivitäten.

Nicole zeigt mit ihrer Arbeit, wie das Sprichwort „raising by lifting others“ in der Praxis umgesetzt werden kann.

Links zu Nicole:

Nicole‘s Website: https://www.nicolezieger.com/

Nicole’s Podcast „Leadership Impuls“: https://www.nicolezieger.com/leadershipimpulspodcast

Online Events von Nicole: https://www.nicolezieger.com/events (Noch in Bearbeitung)

Nicole’s Podcast auf Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2OaloJe3lvWxQ4u3uYpHfA

Nicole’s Online Kurse: https://www.udemy.com/

Nicole’s Beratungsteam: https://www.cnx-consulting.de/transformation-change-management

Nicole auf LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zieger-nicole/

Leadership Impuls auf Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leadershipimpuls/

Nicole’s Buchempfehlungen:
• Your brain at Work von David Rock
• Neuroscience for organizational Change von Hilary Scarlett

043: It was such a pleasure interviewing another great example of collaboration - fully virtual by the way. I am thrilled to introduce this episode with Daniela and Alex to you.

Alex is a leading author, entrepreneur, and in-demand speaker whose work has changed the way established companies do business and how new ventures get started. He’s currently ranked No. 4 of Thinkers50, the top 50 management thinkers worldwide. He invented the Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition Canvas, and Business Portfolio Map together with Yves Pigneur. His books include the international bestseller Business Model Generation, Value Proposition Design, Testing Business Ideas, The Invincible Company, and the newest one, High-Impact Tools for Teams.

Since August 2018, Swiss Daniela Leutwyler has been a Personal Assistant to Alex Osterwalder. Just a few months earlier, in March 2018, she had started her own business as a Virtual Assistant with the goal of being able to pursue her profession regardless of location in the future. Leutwyler can look back on over 20 years of professional experience as an assistant, most recently for over seven years as Executive Assistant to Marc Walder, CEO Ringier AG.

Follow Daniela, Alex and Strategyzer:
https://strategyzer.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/osterwalder
https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniela-leutwyler/
https://twitter.com/alexosterwalder

042: „Digitalisierung ist keine Frage der Technologie – es ist vielmehr eine veränderte Geisteshaltung! ”

Christian's Ziel ist es, Menschen zu inspirieren und weiterzubringen. Das spiegelt sich bei ihm in vielen Bereichen wider – ob nun in seiner Leidenschaft zur Musik, in seinen Keynotes oder in seinem Unternehmen "Digital Mindsest".

Nach seinem Wirtschaftsinformatik-Studium an der FHDW Hannover war er einige Zeit in unterschiedlichsten Unternehmen u.a. als Bereichsleiter Produkt & Marketing in einem mittelständischen Medienhaus unterwegs. Die Idee, seine eigenen Stärken und Ideen anderen Unternehmen anzubieten, kam in 2015. Herausgekommen ist die Digital Mindset.

Schaut mal bei Christian vorbei:

• https://www.digitalmindset.de/
• https://www.bredlow.de/
• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC--ko4_McXl2RcUHpYyZobQ
• http://www.das-b.de/

Ich hoffe, die Folge gefällt Dir genauso gut wie mir und ich freue mich über eine Bewertung von Dir.

Herzlich, Diana xoxo

041: Karen Nanninga is an expe­ri­en­ced trai­ner and con­sul­tant in the field of manage­ment sup­port, as well as a busi­ness and life coach for pro­fes­sio­nals. She is pas­sio­na­te about accom­pany­ing peop­le on their per­so­nal deve­lop­ment paths: when deli­ver­ing trai­ning to a group or when coa­ching indi­vi­du­als. Her objec­tive is always to deve­lop and mobi­li­ze per­so­nal poten­ti­al and inner wis­dom, to encou­ra­ge peop­le to take steps, to empower them to set and reach goals, to inspi­re them to live the life they want. She stron­gly belie­ves that each indi­vi­dual can make a dif­fe­ren­ce in his/her own envi­ron­ment, no mat­ter what posi­ti­on (s)he holds. Each person’s role goes bey­ond his/her job descrip­ti­on, as we all bring uni­que per­so­nal com­pe­ten­ce, talents and inte­rests to the work­pla­ce. Leadership is her moti­va­ti­on and mes­sa­ge in all her pro­fes­sio­nal are­as and activi­ties.

Karen and her company KN manage­ment sup­port stands for many years of expe­ri­en­ce in the area of manage­ment sup­port, with tailor-made trai­ning and semi­nars, com­pe­tent advice, goal-oriented coa­ching for pro­fes­sio­nals and a broad varie­ty of assi­gn­ments for the manage­ment assis­tant pro­fes­si­on.

To deve­lop, to be open to new things, to grow, and that life-long: That’s what Karen wants to inspi­re peop­le to do. Optimizing one’s per­so­nal poten­ti­al is the­re­fo­re her grea­test con­cern as a trai­ner, lec­turer and coach, becau­se pro­fes­sio­nal and per­so­nal deve­lop­ment go hand in hand. Read more about Karen here: https://www.karen-nanninga.com/en/

I am honored to call Karen not only a fabulous mentor but also a friend. We both belong to IMA (https://www.ima-network.org/) for many years and she was the one I held many important conversations with regarding my personal story.

Enjoy this talk, everybody, and get to know the wonderful Karen.

Diana xoxo

040: Moin, moin nach Hamburg.

Schön wäre es gewesen, wenn ich auch diese Folge hätte live aufnehmen können. Einmal mehr hat es nicht geklappt und so habe ich mir die Alster virtuell an die Spree geholt und den lieben Bano Diop gleich mit.

Bano ist Eventmanager und Experte für zielgruppenorientierte Events.
Er sagt über sich selbst: "Mein Ziel ist es Events zu konzipieren, die aufgrund ihrer Nähe zu den Leidenschaften der jeweiligen Zielgruppe ein hohen Erlebnisfaktor bieten. So ist sichergestellt, dass die Botschaft Deines Unternehmens oder Produktes emotional aufgenommen wird und eine bleibende Erinnerung entsteht."

Event Management und die Trends, die kommen werden, hatten wir auf dem Programm bei dieser Folge. Ich bin mir sicher, Du wirst einige Tipps mitnehmen und bei den nächsten Planungen einsetzen können.

Schaue gerne mal bei Bano vorbei und bei seinem tollen Podcast:
https://banodiop.de/
https://banodiop.de/eventmanagementpodcast/

Freue Dich auf diese Folge und Bano (Spoiler: Die schönste Stimme, die ich bisher vor meinem Mikro hatte...).

Diana xoxo

039: Dieses Interview hätte ich gerne bei Alex im Büro von Siemens Schweiz in Zug aufgenommen, aber wie vieles in 2020, war auch das nicht möglich und so haben wir uns im Dezember virtuell getroffen, um über New Work bei Siemens, die digitale Transformation und die Rolle der Assistenz zu diskutieren.

Alexander Senn hat einen MBA in General Management der Universität St. Gallen sowie einen Bachelor und Executive Master in Human Resources Management.

Er transformierte erfolgreich HR Organisationen in eine digitalisierte HR Arbeitswelt und hat Erfahrung sowohl im strategischen als auch im operativen HR in der Schweiz und international.

Nach seinen Stationen u.a. bei KPMG und Swisscom ist er nun seit 2018 bei Siemens tätig.

Alex unterstützt als HR-Chef auch das Projekt Assistenznetzwerk, der erste Assistenztag fand virtuell in 2020 statt. Ich durfte dabei sein und bin noch immer begeistert, was das Team um Lorena Caccese-Pasquotto auf die Beine gestellt hat.

Siemens beschäftigt weltweit 385.000 Mitarbeitende. In der Schweiz arbeiten insgesamt 5.700 Mitarbeitende, davon rund 1.700 am Siemens Headquarter in Zug.

038: 2020 - what a year. Welcome 2021, may it be a better year in many ways.

How did you reflect on the year 2020? Many people do see the negative things first and for sure there have been many for us out there but we forget all the positivity at the same time.

In this episode, I will discover together with you that 2020 was not overall a bad year for us. Babies were born, new projects started, many businesses pivoted and much more. Let us concentrate on the good - also while we enter a new year.

Much love to you from Diana xoxo