When Is It Time to Make Your First Executive Assistant Hire?
For many growing organizations, hiring their first Executive Assistant (EA) feels to them more like a “nice‑to‑have” rather than a necessity. Leaders often assume they should wait until the workload becomes too much or until they reach a certain company size. In reality, the right time to make your first EA hire often comes much earlier than expected. And waiting too long can quietly slow growth.
So, how do you know when it is time?
You or other leaders are spending too much time on the ‘wrong’ work.
If you find yourself regularly scheduling and rescheduling meetings or travel, preparing presentations or other slide decks, sending emails, or constantly feeling like you need to follow up with people but don't have the time, this is the first sign. Your time is being pulled away from higher-value work. Having an EA to do these duties is not just handling tasks for you; they are protecting your time, so the focus can be more on strategy, decision-making, and growth.
Information is getting bottlenecked.
When there is too much going on, it means emails are going unanswered, meetings are not being followed up on, or important details may just be sitting there in someone's inbox. In turn, productivity is suffering. An experienced EA creates structure. They are tracking priorities, organizing all the information, and ensuring that nothing is slipping through the cracks. This becomes increasingly critical as organizations continue to grow and become more complex.
Meetings are increasing, but outcomes are not.
As companies grow, meetings tend to multiply. Without someone there helping to manage preparation, create agendas, gather materials and action items, meetings can become very inefficient and often repetitive. An EA would help turn meetings into productive working sessions and ensure that the right information and people are in the room; and that decisions are actually moving forward.
Your organization is growing faster than your processes.
Grow often exposes gaps in processes, communication, and workflows. A strong EA can act as an operational partner to help improve coordination across teams and support all leaders through change. Many first-time EA hires very quickly evolve into trusted extensions of the leadership team.
You find yourself thinking “we could really use one”, more often than not.
This is probably the clearest signal that it is time to hire an EA. If you or other leaders are continuously acknowledging the need for support, even if it is just in a casual conversation, it is usually time to really explore the idea seriously. You will find that the cost of a very strong EA is always outweighed by the regained time, clarity, and efficiency that they bring to an organization.
Your first Executive Assistant is not just an administrative decision – it is a strategic one. The right EA will enable leaders to operate at a much higher level, support organizational scaling, and bring structure during periods of growth or transition. If your leadership time is feeling stretched too thin or bogged down in day-to-day logistics, that is often the moment when an EA can make the biggest impact.
Neve Bonelli
Managing Director, Administrative & Legal Practice
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Unlock Leadership Bandwidth With the Right EA
A strong Executive Assistant is more than administrative support—they’re a strategic partner who restores focus, elevates execution, and strengthens operational clarity. Juno helps organizations find EAs who become true extensions of their leadership team.