From Executive Assistant to Learning Leader

Jeremy Burrows has spent nearly ten years as senior executive assistant to the CEO of Capacity, an AI support automation platform. He also hosts the Leader Assistant podcast and is the author of The Leader Assistant. In this episode, he joins Diana and Mel for a practical, honest conversation about where the admin profession is headed.Jeremy explains why the “assistant” half of the title is the part AI is taking over, and why that opens the door for EAs to do more of the executive work. He shares how he booked more than 250 investor meetings for his CEO in two months, with 90 to 95 percent of them scheduled automatically. He also talks about what to do when your leader hands you two more executives, and why the best way to learn AI is to ask the AI tool itself.The conversation also gets personal. Jeremy talks about burnout, why he now focuses on resisting it instead of avoiding it, and why a hobby is one of the best tools he has found. He weighs in on whether admins are too focused on titles, and he shares the hard lesson that taught him to separate his worth from his work.

No guest. No filter. Just Diana and Mel in full form.In this episode, the two admins riff on everything from headshots and business cards to recruiting horror stories, catfishing text messages, and the wildly inconsistent world of interviewing as an executive assistant. Mel admits she spent a whole pandemic serial interviewing out of pure boredom. Diana has not interviewed for a job since Campbell Soup. And both of them have thoughts about recruiters who ghost you after promising to follow up on Monday.They also tease an upcoming AI episode with a guest who is going to blow your mind, and remind every admin listening that they are not alone in any of it. This one is unscripted, unfiltered, and exactly what you need on a Wednesday.

Libby Moore moved to New York City with one dream to: write for Saturday Night Live. What happened instead changed everything.After years as a personal assistant to Maury Povich and an executive assistant at Rolling Stone, Libby set one intention on a subway ride that she could not have predicted would lead her straight to Oprah Winfrey. She went on to serve as Oprah's chief of staff and executive assistant for eleven years, and what she learned in that role became the foundation for her fourteen-year career as a life and executive coach.In this episode Diana and Mel sit down with Libby for one of the most honest, inspiring, and deeply human conversations this podcast has ever had. Libby talks about why so many admins play smaller than they actually are, why authenticity is where your power truly lives, the prayer she said in a hotel lobby before meeting Oprah, and the simple mirror exercise that changed her life and will change yours too.This one is not just for admins. This one is for anyone who has ever gotten in their own way.

In this episode of Two Admins and a Mic, Diana and Mel welcome Diana Brandl, a former executive assistant turned coach, trainer, consultant, author, and host of the Executive Office Insights podcast, joining from Verona, Italy. Diana shares how a childhood love of "playing office," a year as an au pair in Virginia, and a three-year assistant academy in Germany led to a twenty-year career supporting executives, and how mentors, community, and a supportive husband (now her CFO and COO) gave her the courage to leave her full-time role and build her own business.The conversation dives into mentoring and networking, with Diana explaining why she always looked for a challenger rather than a cheerleader, and sharing her personal networking rules: go to conferences alone, leave your comfort zone, and step outside the admin "bubble." She makes the case that admins spend too much time talking to each other on LinkedIn and not enough time bringing leaders and stakeholders into the conversation. Diana also weighs in on the chief of staff path, the new certification and mini MBA programs she is building in Germany, and why she salutes every assistant who simply wants to stay an assistant and do an incredible job.Diana closes with practical tools for proving value, including the Global Skills Matrix, Elizabeth Sutowska's ROI calculator, a client's AI chatbot built by an internal assistant network, and the idea of a Friday "win report" for your executive. Her one piece of advice she would no longer give? Keep everything in harmony. Today she says: don't be a people pleaser, bring your standpoint, and remember you're worth it.

In this episode of Two Admins and a Mic, Diana and Mel welcome Peggy Vasquez, a former chief executive administrator turned speaker, coach, and author, to talk about visibility, self-worth, and the future of the admin profession in the age of AI. Peggy shares the story of how small, consistent acts of building relationships and community visibility (rather than just "doing the job") led to a surprise $20,000 raise and a title bump, and unpacks why so many admins still feel undervalued and hesitant to invest in their own growth through coaching and training. The conversation turns to AI, with Peggy arguing that while AI is a powerful tool, it cannot replace the trust-building, relationship intelligence, and human judgment that admins bring, and predicting that companies that slashed administrative staff in favor of AI will eventually face costly "lessons learned" reports. Peggy also opens up about leaving her corporate job in January 2020 to go full-time into entrepreneurship, only to have COVID hit ten weeks later, and how resilience and her "speaker sisters" network helped her rebuild. She closes by sharing her three books — Not Just an Admin, Mean Girl No More, and The Roadmap to Empowering You — as well as her ongoing coaching, speaking, and cohort work for administrative professionals.

Bonnie Low-Kramen has spent decades fighting for the administrative profession, and she is not slowing down.In this episode, Diana and Mel sit down with Bonnie, global speaker, trainer, author of Be the Ultimate Assistant and Staff Matters, and former longtime EA to Oscar winner Olympia Dukakis, for a conversation that covers everything the profession needs to hear right now.Bonnie shares the advice she gave early in her career that she's since completely changed her mind about, why assistants give away too much power without even realizing it, and why the stat that the average age a leader receives their first formal management training is 46 keeps her up at night.She also gets into AI, what assistants around the world are saying, why companies have to slow the rollout down, and why the EAs who will thrive are the ones leaning into their people skills, not running from them.She also shares what is next for her, including college campuses, FBLA conventions, and a commencement speech that's been on her bucket list for years.

In this episode, Chris Kraus shares his journey from executive assistant at Campbell Soup to a role in learning and development. He discusses the importance of mentorship, Campbell Soup's collaborative culture, and his experience creating training programs for administrative professionals. Chris emphasizes the value of lifelong learning and the impact of supportive colleagues in shaping his career. In this engaging conversation, Chris discusses the evolving role of administrative professionals in the age of AI. They explore the importance of networking, learning from each other, and maintaining human connections while embracing technology. Chris shares his experiences with AI in team settings, emphasizing the need for curiosity and verification in using AI tools. The discussion highlights the balance between leveraging technology and preserving the human touch in professional environments.

What does it take to turn a happy hour into a professional lifeline? For Ike Saunders, founder of REACH, it started with six strangers, some free appetizers, and a refusal to ever put a price tag on connection.In this episode, Ike joins Mel and Diana to trace how REACH (Regional Executive Assistants Cocktail Hour) grew from a casual 2012 gathering of six assistants in Chicago into a membership organization built entirely on the principle that no one should pay to access a strong network. Ike opens up about founding REACH after his mentor Chris Kennedy retired and left him without a built-in support system, how the group pivoted to survive COVID, and why he's resisted every offer to franchise it into other cities. The conversation turns personal as Ike talks about supporting both the professional and personal lives of Chris and his wife Sheila for 17 years, the boundaries that make that dual role sustainable, and the moment, juggling a family funeral against a planned trip to Europe, that taught him what it really means to be indispensable. He closes with the one word he hopes people remember him by.

Diana and Mel go off-script in this unfiltered riff on one of the most relatable admin struggles: preparing for vacation while basically running a second job to get there.Diana shares her go-to strategies: keeping Doug's calendar light while she's out, sending weekly email briefings with every document attached, and why she checks emails from the beach anyway because coming back to 1,500 unread messages is its own kind of vacation nightmare.Mel opens up about the text that ruined a cave hike in Curaçao, Diana gets into being screamed at during Hurricane Sandy with no power and downed trees, and both admins agree on one thing: boundaries matter, and not every leader respects them. No guests, no filter, just two admins telling the truth about the vacation you earn and the job that follows you there.

In Part 2, Doug Conant gets personal and practical, sharing why he and his wife just “discovered” Netflix, his love of Louis L’Amour and Jack Reacher, and how recovering from hip surgery has turned movie night into his new fiction fix. He opens up about the leadership habit that’s taken him the longest to learn—deep, authentic listening—especially as an introvert who once kept his head down and tried to make everyone happy. Doug explains how an outplacement counselor challenged him to “stand up and be counted,” why encouragement and handwritten notes can transform relationships and culture, and how great leaders are both tough-minded on performance and kind-hearted with people, celebrating what’s going right while still dealing honestly with what’s not.