It all started over a beer in my Brighton local back in 2002…
I’d not long returned to the UK from living in Seattle, after the Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine school where I was training went bankrupt, and my career in acupuncture came to an abrupt halt.
My years in the Pacific Northwest had given me a taste for wide open spaces so a week after I landed in London I moved to Brighton on the south coast.
Back to the pub…where I was having a drink with a new friend who suggested I could put to good use my many years of experience as an executive assistant to start my own business. This was back in the early 2000s when the only people who knew about VAs (or virtual assistants) were coaches, and he was the first one I’d met.
I was taken by the idea of not having to leave the house to work, as at the time I was part way through a contract with a big management consultancy, and was exhausted from spending four hours a day on a train commuting to London.
The dream was sparked and six months later I was sitting in front of my Mac with my dial-up internet connection quizzically wondering what I was meant to be actually doing as a freshly minted VA! (The answer was to work with a coach in a small group online to figure out exactly what I wanted to create, and the next steps to get there).
Fast forward 20 years and my business has evolved in ways I would never have imagined at the start. From qualifying as a coach (thanks to one of my early clients, Coaching Development); to designing, and delivering my own VA coaching and training course; and then pivoting to focus on digital marketing with a small team of associates, offering strategy, website development and social media training.
The link to all of these developments has been the ongoing growth of businesses online, and my mission to support entrepreneurs in that space to make the world a better place.
As a Certified Online Business Manager® and Coach, my superpower is working with clients at the sweet spot of strategy + implementation. Helping you figure out where you want to take your business, then creating a plan and managing the team to get you there.
From ongoing support as your “Second in Command” to stand-alone projects, done in a day…if you’re sick of doing this all alone we should talk.
Let’s get started on figuring out the best support for you and your business so you can step into your real role, as CEO.
(If you’re wondering, the photos are of Hastings, a bit further east along the coast from Brighton, where I moved in Summer 2023).
Fun Fact #1
My first girl-crush was at 15 (but the homophobic culture in my all girls school sent me straight into the closet and I didn’t come out until I was 20).
Fun Fact #2
I swam a mile when I was 10 (I was always a marathon rather than a sprint kind of human).
Fun Fact #3
I left home at 18 to live in a squat on one of the most notorious estates in South London. (I now own my own home and see no conflict with my earlier self).
Fun Fact #4
I heard Angela Davis speak at UCSD when I was an exchange student in San Diego in 1986. (She was, and is, a brilliant human and inspiration for standing up for what’s right).
Fun Fact #5
I “moonlighted” as a dancer in the Lusty Lady, a woman-run peep show in Seattle, while working my day job in Investor Relations at a bank opposite.
Fun Fact #6
I went to my first yoga class in London when I was 19, and I’ve been practising ever since. I completed my yoga teacher training in 2016 (for my own learning).
