What is a strategic EA, and how do you become one?
A strategic EA is an Executive Assistant who is trusted with the reasons behind the diary, not just the dates in it. They know what their executive is trying to achieve this quarter, they plan the week around it, and they are expected to notice when something is pulling the leader off course and to say so. The tasks are often the same as any good EA’s. What changes is the judgement applied to them, and the way the EA is treated as a result.
I have recruited Executive Assistants at board level for over a decade through our sister company, Lily Shippen, and in the last couple of years “strategic” has gone from a nice word in a job advert to something clients ask me for specifically. Most of them struggle to define it. Most EAs who have made the shift find it hard to describe too, because it did not happen on a single day. Here is how I would explain it, and how you get there.
What a strategic EA actually does differently
Three things, in my experience, separate the EAs who are treated as strategic partners from the ones who are treated as support, however good they are at the job.
They work from the priorities, not the inbox. A strategic EA knows the three or four things that matter most to their executive this quarter, and makes decisions about time, access and preparation with those in mind. When a meeting request comes in, the question is not whether there is a gap in the diary but whether this deserves one.
They anticipate rather than react. They read the board pack before the executive does. They know which relationships are cooling and which decisions are stuck. They bring the problem, and usually a suggested answer, before anyone has asked.
They have a voice in the room. They sit in the leadership meeting as someone with a view, not as the person taking the notes. When they say “I do not think this is the week for that”, people listen, because they have been right before.
None of this is about being busier. The most strategic EAs I know are rarely the busiest. They have stopped doing the things that did not need them.
What it is not
It is not a Chief of Staff. The two get confused constantly, and the confusion costs people jobs and costs employers hires. A Chief of Staff owns outcomes across the leadership team and is measured on them. A strategic EA owns the executive’s effectiveness. There is overlap, but they are different jobs with different accountability, and the move from EA to Chief of Staff is not for everyone. If that is really the question you are asking, read what does a Chief of Staff actually do? and the difference between an EA and a Chief of Staff.
It is also not a title you can give yourself. “Strategic EA” on a LinkedIn profile means nothing until the executive you support would describe you that way without being prompted.
How the shift happens in practice
Every EA I have watched make this shift has done some version of the same four things.
They asked for the context. What are we trying to achieve this year, what is keeping you awake, what would you most like taken off your plate. Many executives have never been asked, and most are relieved when they are.
They changed what they reported on. Instead of telling the executive what had been done, they started telling them what was coming, what was at risk and what they recommended. That shift, from past tense to future tense, is the clearest sign of the change I know.
They stopped protecting the executive from their own decisions. Strategic EAs push back, politely, in private and with reasons. Support EAs absorb.
They built relationships around the executive, not just with them. The CFO’s EA, the Chair’s office, the Head of People. A strategic EA knows where the information lives and is trusted to carry it.
The skills underneath all of this are the ones I set out in what a modern Executive Assistant needs in 2027: commercial awareness, judgement, influence and the confidence to use them.
Does a course get you there?
Not on its own, and I say that as someone who runs a training company. A day of training will not make you strategic by itself. What it can do is give you the frameworks, the language and the permission, and put you in a room with other EAs making the same shift at the same time.
That is what our EA & PA Strategy Training Day is built to do. It is a one-day, in-person, CPD-accredited programme run in small groups in London and Manchester by Emily Partridge, who did this job at the highest level before she started teaching it. The people who get the most from it arrive with a specific executive, a specific relationship and a specific frustration in mind, and leave with something to do on Monday morning. You can read what attendees have said on our Strategy Training Day reviews page, and see how the day fits with our other EA and PA training.
If you are not sure whether you are ready for it, or whether the problem is the training or the executive, book a discovery call and we will tell you honestly. If the answer is that you are not ready yet, we will say so.
Frequently asked questions
A strategic EA owns the executive’s effectiveness: their time, their priorities, their preparation and the relationships around them. A Chief of Staff owns outcomes across the whole leadership team and is measured on them. The overlap is real, but the accountability is different, and a Chief of Staff is not a senior EA. The move from one to the other suits some EAs and not others.
No. There is no recognised qualification for it in the UK, and the title is earned in the relationship with the executive rather than on paper. Training helps most when it gives you the frameworks and the language for a shift you are already trying to make. Our EA & PA Strategy Training Day is CPD accredited, which matters to some employers, but the certificate is not the point of the day.
It depends on the executive as much as on you. The shift starts with a conversation about priorities and shows up within weeks in how you report, plan and push back. Being seen as strategic by the wider leadership team takes longer, usually months, because that trust is built on being right more than once.
Read more from us…
How to write an executive assistant CV that gets you interviews
A recruiter's guide to the executive assistant CV: what employers look for, how to turn duties into evidence, the details that quietly cost interviews, and when a CV needs to change for a Chief of Staff role. From Lily Shippen.
What is a strategic EA, and how do you become one?
“Strategic EA” is on job adverts everywhere. Here is what the title means in practice, how the shift happens, and the honest answer on whether a course gets you there.
Why EA development is one of the easiest year-end cases to make
Holding unspent L&D budget? Emily Partridge on why developing the EAs and PAs who support your executives is such an easy year-end case to make, what to buy at three scales, and how to invoice it in 2026.
