Humor keeps Richard Branson’s PA going
Personal assistants help ensure successful executives stay on top of their work, writes Suzanne Locke for The National. Helen Clarke, personal assistant to Richard Branson (the founder of Virgin Group), knows just how much is expected in the job. Clarke worked in hospitality for a security company before becoming a flight attendant with Virgin Atlantic in 2004. In 2006, she started moving up the ranks, transitioning from a personal assistant at Virgin’s head office to assisting Branson’s PA in 2007. When the PA left in 2008, Clarke was promoted.
Clarke’s most common task involves going through and answering all of Branson’s emails, because he likes everyone to get a response. Her duties also involve organizing both his professional and personal life, which often comes with the added task of traveling around the world with her boss. She says if she wasn’t Mr. Branson’s personal assistant, she would like to have her own bar and restaurant in Ibiza, although she still believes that she would continue working in the personal assistant field.
While Branson is very organized on his own, Clarke is tasked with organizing 95% of Branson’s time to make room for more important tasks.
But the real secret to doing her job well has nothing to do with time management, she says. “It’s important to have a sense of humor, especially at work in a hectic environment. Work hard, be flexible, have fun and laugh at least once a day. If you know your job, everything else will fall into place.”
— Adapted from “Behind every successful executive is a hardworking personal assistant,” Suzanne Locke, The National.
