The Leader Assistant Podcast with Jeremy Burrows

#360: Ricky Blanco - Stepping into a Leadership Mindset as an EA

• Jeremy Burrows • Episode 360

Share episode

Ricky Blanco Saavedra is a Sr. Executive Assistant at Viva Exec, supporting the CTO and Head of Go-to-Market at Shippo.

In this episode of The Leader Assistant Podcast, Ricky talks about discarding the “I’m just the EA” mindset, and stepping into a leadership mindset, how to fight impostor syndrome, and more.

Show Notes -> leaderassistant.com/360 

--
In-person meeting planning can be a lot to manage. That’s where TROOP Planner comes in. TROOP Planner is built to make life easier for busy assistants like yourself. Whether you’re organizing an executive offsite, department meeting, or team retreat, TROOP keeps it simple, fast, and organized.

Visit leaderassistant.com/troop to learn more!

--
Are you ready to level up? Enroll in The Leader Assistant Academy at leaderassistant.com/academy to embrace the Leader Assistant frameworks used by thousands of assistants.

--
Eliminate manual scheduling with YouCanBookMe by Capacity's booking links, automated reminders, and meeting polls. Sign up for a FREE trial -> leaderassistant.com/calendar.

More from The Leader Assistant...

Ricky:

So hello, my name is Ricky Blanco Saavedra, and today's leadership quote comes from Jack Welch. Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.

Speaker:

The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, game-changing leader assistants.

Jeremy:

Hey friends, welcome to the Leader Assistant Podcast. It's your host, Jeremy Burrows, and this is episode 360. You can check out the show notes for this conversation at leaderassistant.com slash 360. Again, that's leaderassistant.com slash 360. Today I'm very excited to be speaking with Ricky Blanco. Ricky is a senior executive assistant at Viva Exec, and so he supports the CTO and head of GoToMarketing at Shippo. So Ricky, first of all, welcome to the show. Hi, Jeremy. Thanks for having me. Super excited to be here. Tell us what part of the world you're in and what you like to do when you're not working.

Ricky:

Yeah, so um I'm in Guatemala, Guatemala City, born and bred here. Um I'm super uh excited to be here. I um I love my country. It's uh it's where I was born and raised, and um in my free time I like to spend time with my family. I have a beautiful four-legged daughter who I love to spend time with. She's a schnauzer, her name is Kaya, and um I'm also a huge reader and writer. So uh you can see in the background my my blurred uh bookshelf. It's it's a total mess. Um, but that's uh kind of like what I like to do in a nutshell.

Jeremy:

Nice. Do you have a certain genre of books that you like to read or that you're uh kind of uh stuck on right now?

Ricky:

Yeah, I love uh psychological thrillers, uh, I love romance, I love fantasy, and I've started to dip my toes into uh crime. Uh so police, crime scenes, all that. Nice. Love it.

Jeremy:

Well, thanks again for being here. So you're I mentioned your title senior executive assistant, and uh you are, and make sure I'm understanding this correctly, you are a contracted executive assistant, uh remote executive assistant for um Viva, which is a subscription service that hires, trains, and matches high-caliber executive assistants with leaders at high growth companies. And so just to clarify, so you work for Viva, but uh Shippo essentially contracts them to provide an assistant at aka u uh to support their CTO, right? Yes, that's right.

Ricky:

I am a technically a Viva employee and Shippo subscribed to Viva for my services. Awesome, awesome.

Jeremy:

Wait what how did you get into kind of two questions. How did you get into the EA role assisting in general, and then specifically how'd you get into um this kind of remote contract uh role at Viva?

Ricky:

Yeah, so the answer kind of like goes uh hand in hand. It's one of the same. Um I I it was a surprise for me when I bumped into an EA role. Um, but um to give you a little bit of backstory, I started working um back in 2020 when the pandemic hit Guatemala. So um ever since I started working at this local company, uh, I went remote. So that's something that I've appreciated for all the whole of my professional life, let's say. Um but I wasn't really passionate about that job. I was in charge of doing the QA for training programs for all the employees at that company. Um and my manager, um, we didn't see eye to eye in a lot of things, so I decided to resign. And then I thought that maybe the corporate world wasn't uh the path that I wanted to take. So I decided to to work with my dad who was starting a company of his own. And when I started working with him, um I was doing a lot of different things. I was doing marketing, I was doing social media, I was doing sales, I was doing admin work. And that lasted for about a little bit under three years. Um, and I thought that I wanted to just have a change of scenery. I wanted to try something new, I wanted to try something that I hadn't done before. So I started doing what everyone does. I just went into LinkedIn and started scrolling through through the jobs that I that I got recommended from from my profile. And uh Viva actually popped up and I thought that it was interesting. I read about the company, I did some research, and what really resonated about the company with me was the the mission because we we um we empower women in Latin America and strive to to eradicate gender inequality, which is something that I'm really passionate about. Um and it was an EA role. So I applied and uh it took some back and forth, but uh in the end, I was uh I was uh contacted and did like all of the all of the tests and all of the requirements, did the interviews, and uh long story short, I was hired by Viva. I had no EA experience um prior to that. I hadn't been an executive assistant or I hadn't assisted someone in particular. But um when I was going through the process, I saw that all of the requirements and all of like the core EA skills or experience needed, let's say, uh were things that I did for myself throughout my previous jobs. So I thought that I was qualified for the role. Um I went through the whole training program, and uh after one month, my my uh customer success team told me that they had a customer lined up for me. We did some intro calls, uh, I started to meet the executives to Chippo and uh I got onboarded. And um I've I'm happy to say that I've just hit a two-year mark with Shippo. Uh so the rest you could say it's been history.

Jeremy:

That's great.

Ricky:

Congrats.

Jeremy:

Thank you. What's maybe your number one tip for working working remote?

Ricky:

I'd say my number one tip for anyone considering going remote would be to um know how to set your boundaries, know how to work your schedules, and know how to like fight for for that work-life balance. Because uh when I first started working remote, I didn't have to waste time in like commutes, I didn't have to be stuck in traffic. Uh so I thought that I had more time to work, but um, but in in the end, I in my previous jobs I got uh overworked, uh, I was I felt overwhelmed, and I came to realize that it was because I wasn't setting my boundaries and I wasn't um like setting those limits for my teams. Um so my biggest tip would be to to give your all during your working hours. Um I know that sometimes extra hours are are needed and and it's fine to to put in the extra work and give the extra mile, but it definitely shouldn't be the uh the the default setting. Um so that's that's what I would say. It would be super important for anyone considering to know how to set their limits.

Jeremy:

Love it, love it. Well you know, we you've been there for you said right at two years or so at Chipotle. How has the role evolved uh in those two years? You know, like what is there were you always quote unquote senior executive assistant? Was that something that kind of you grew into? Um yeah, tell us a little bit about how the you know, what's the difference between uh Ricky uh, you know, 22 months ago and and Ricky now in this role?

Ricky:

Yeah, so as far as the title goes, I wasn't always a senior EA. Um that was one of the that was the growth path that I'm that I'm on at Viva. And uh basically at Viva everyone joins as an as an EA or a junior EA, and then they grow into a senior EA once we've shown like all of the all of the core competencies, all of the core EA skills. And then once we're ready to to take that path uh for the senior EA position, which is basically the same in terms of business, but then um once you become a senior EA, you're more exposed to leadership positions. Um you get and I'm just explaining the Viva side and then I'll jump to the to the chipbox side. Um uh so once you become a senior EA at Viva, you get more exposed to leadership positions and you have the the option to become a customer success lead, uh, which basically means that you're able to coach and have partial oversight over junior EAs. Um and that's something that I always wanted to do. I always wanted to become a CSL because my my goal at Viva is to become a customer success manager, which is the the the next path. Um so that's kind of like how the the evolution happens um on viva side. But then on Shippo, the role has evolved quite a bit and it continues to evolve. Uh I always say that it there's um every day is different, and that's something that I enjoy about the role, and and that's something that keeps it interesting. Um but in my case in particular, it evolved quite a bit because I was I've been supported, I've been supporting many different executives throughout my time at Shippo. Because um Shippo has uh subscribed to Viva's plan and has expanded. Uh so we have uh grown the the EA Viva team uh at Shippo. So every time we had a new uh Viva EA join the team, we had to kind of like redistribute executives and EAs to optimize the support. Um so as as you may know, every time that I supported a new executive, things changed, things evolved because I had to like get used to them, learn their preferences, learn their priorities and stuff like that, and uh understand like their personalities. Um but in a more like general or high-level um point of view, um through my time at SHIPO, I've been able to earn more trust from my executives, I've been able to expand my scope, uh, collaborate more cross-functionally, and that naturally will um expand like the responsibilities that I have. Um I first started doing like admin work, and and that will be it. But now I have more uh more of an operations role um across some teams. So um I guess the biggest evolution I've seen in my role comes from the time in my tenure at Chippo and being able to like expand my my scope and also um having the advantage of having supported many different executives throughout the time that I've been here. Awesome.

Jeremy:

That's great. So is just for those curious then, is Viva primarily or maybe even exclusively hiring people in Latin America, or is is there opportunities for uh you know assistance in other countries to apply as well?

Ricky:

We hire in Latin America, yeah.

Jeremy:

Gotcha. Cool. Yeah. Um awesome. Well, uh let's talk a little bit about the leadership mindset. You know, you mentioned practically how your role has changed, um but how how do other EAs and and maybe how have you in your in your career, how have you changed this mindset from hey, I'm just an EA or I'm just the assistant, to hey, I'm actually a leader, I'm uh leading teams, I'm leading executives, I'm leading um the organization. What what have you done to help yourself and how can assistants listening uh shift that mindset? Say, hey, uh you know, I'm not just the EA or the assistant, I am a leader assistant, I am a leader.

Ricky:

Okay. So I think that's a very deep question because uh to be super blunt with you, that's something that um that I believe everyone keeps working on on a continuous uh basis, let's say. I think that that's something that you need to work on every single day, and that's something that you need to keep that's a muscle that you need to keep training um every day. And there's not a point in time where you say, like, okay, I'm a leader now, I'll always be, and I'll never have to worry about building that skill again. Um, but in my case, um it was mostly about staying humble and also um learning how to be confident with myself. Because uh when I first joined Shippo, um, like I said, I had never had any experience supporting uh any executives, uh, I had never been an EA, and I had never worked for a US company where I had such a close relationship with uh with leadership team members in such high positions. I'd never worked with C-suite executives, I'd never had conversations with like CTOs, CEOs, I'd never been exposed to that. So when I first, so when I first was exposed to that, I was I was a little bit um it felt daunting because I was like, okay, I'm just a kid, I've never been an EA, how can I walk up to this to the to these people and be like, hey, I have these and these ideas, I think that this could be better, I think we can improve this. Um so at first, um, I think that it's really important for executives, for executive assistants, um giving themselves the space to like settle into their role, not rush into things and just uh get a feel for who they're working with, what their roles are, what their scope scopes are. Um and once that you feel comfortable in your role, once you feel comfortable with the things that you're doing with the people that you're interacting with, then you can start to take active uh steps to build that muscle and to discard that I'm just the assistant mindset. Um in my case, that looked like analyzing my executive's personalities, uh building a personal bond with them uh so I could feel comfortable with them. And then once that I understood who I was working with, what were my core responsibilities, what's what my what my role was about, then I was able to feel more confident. I knew what I was doing, I knew that I was doing a good job. And um I think that carries a lot of collateral benefits because once you feel comfortable with yourself, I think that the rest of the pieces of the puzzle will kind of like fall into place, and you'll just have to nudge um a few things uh in the right direction from time to time. Um but yeah, in a nutshell, I think that um executive assistants should give themselves the space to breathe at first, settle in, and then um once they're comfortable in their space, in their element, then they can start working on that muscle to become leaders. And that can look different for everyone. I've always said that we all share the same title, but we don't share the same role, uh, depending on who you're supporting, which company you're on, which uh country you're on. I mean, there are a lot of nuances that that play an important factor into what your role is, regardless of the title.

Jeremy:

I love that. So what do you do though when you're when you're doing that and you're you're working through that, you're getting progress and all that, but then the imposter syndrome comes, right? Like you you you get some uh feedback, you think things are going well, but then you you wake up and you're just like, yeah, you know what? I don't know if I actually have uh you know have what it takes or who am I to be doing this, you know. So like how have you dealt with imposter syndrome in your career?

Ricky:

Yeah, so um it's sad to say that I've dealt with imposter syndrome quite a lot, but um, but my my technique here, it might sound um I don't know if it's uh something that a lot of people do. I kind of feel like like we do. It's kind of a like a guilty pleasure, I guess. Um, but throughout my time at VUN Shippo, um we I have been able to receive uh good feedback from the people that I've worked with. I've received shout-outs, I've received uh thoughtful notes, I even get birthday and anniversary cards. And um, every time that I feel like I'm not doing good enough, that I don't have what it takes, I usually just go back and read those because um I I try to find that validation internally and I try to remind myself that I got to where I am because I have what it takes, because I've been a good element, because I've I've shown that my performance is um is at the level that it needs to be. But then there's always that little voice in the back of your head saying, Are you sure though? Are you are you are you Delulu, like people say online? Um but um but I've I've been lucky enough to to have a lot of resources and a lot of tools that help me find that validation externally, um, like text messages from my executives saying how grateful they are for my support, from my peers, whenever I get shout-outs from from different initiatives that I've uh that I've driven. And um Viva is also great at getting that feedback from executives because our performance cycle, um, our performance metrics and everything, um, the the process at Viva is that our managers will actually reach out to our executives on a quarterly basis and they will meet with them and they will get their feedback and then they'll share it with us. So uh I've I'm I'm lucky to have a lot of uh resources and and and feedback written verbal and everything from the people that I've worked with. And uh whenever I feel like I'm not doing a good job or not good enough, I usually go back to those.

Jeremy:

That's super helpful. I know uh uh my friend Maggie Jacobs talks about like this kudos list, like having just a list of anytime somebody gives you kudos, then mark it down, document it, and you know, even present it when you are in your performance review or when you have a business business case to ask for more money and to ask for a raise, like to present all of the kudos that you've gotten. So that's a super helpful tip. Um awesome, Ricky. Well, you know, you uh what I do when I ask my uh guests ahead of time, I say, Hey, you know, what topics would you like to discuss? And one thing you mentioned was the impact that the leader assistment book has had on your team of EAs. So tell us a little bit about that. Have you did you get the book for the team? Did you go do like a little book club or discussions through it? What what was that process like? And and yeah, tell us a little bit more about how that was helpful.

Ricky:

Sure. So I found the book, I believe it was on LinkedIn, or I I'm not entirely sure where I found it, but I just know that the second that I read the leader assistant on the book cover, I was like, I need to get this book, I need to read it. Um and and I and I'll be real, I I bought it selfishly because I wanted to read it myself and I wanted to just uh I wanted to use it as like a like a playbook, let's say, to to up my game as an EA because um right at the time I was actually working on my promotion to senior EA. Um so my manager had given me feedback about how she wanted to see me uh be more proactive of finding resources online, like buying books, uh enrolling in webinars or masterclasses or something to uh improve my skills to get to that level needed for the senior EA role. Um so I found this book. I thought, hey, this is what I need. So I bought it and I started reading it. But also a part of the feedback that my that my manager had said, um, our culture at Viva is very big on empowering each other and being there for our colleagues and growing them as we grow ourselves. Um and she was she was telling me, like, hey, I want to see you do more for the team. I want to see you um proactively get involved in in initiatives or projects where um your objective is to grow the team and help them improve their skills and help them be better YAs as well. So as I was starting to read the book, I was like, hey, I can kill two birds with one stone here. I'll read the book for myself and I'll share uh content with with my with my teammates. So what I did is I started uh putting out weekly knowledge capsules in our learning Slack channel um with the rest of the team. Um and each of the chapters was one knowledge capsule, and then I condensed everything into one single repository in Notion, and um I kept sending them on a weekly basis, and they really resonated with the team. There were a couple of um there were a couple of topics that maybe uh were, I don't know if I'm gonna say more relevant or that resonated more with the team based on what they were experiencing with their with their own uh executives and in their roles. Um but one of the biggest things that was a huge hit was the part in the book where you cover the the core skills that an EA must have to be able to excel in. Role and become a leader assistant. So things like uh, and I have the I have them written down here, uh, things like being discerning, things like being steady, humble, future-proof. Those were all things that the team when we were discussing it async in the in the thread and in the threads in Slack, they were like, hey, this is so obvious. I don't know how I didn't think about this, or or hey, this is super relevant. This should be, we should double-click on this, we should do a learning session on this. So um that's kind of like how that journey played out. Um, it started out as a as a me project, but then it kind of like snowballed into a into a Viva wide initiative for the rest of the team.

Jeremy:

That's amazing. Uh thanks for sharing, and I appreciate you taking that initiative and doing that that uh that uh you know week to week work of uh consolidating the info and putting it in front of your team so that they can it's more bite-sized, you know, like it's tangible, it's not this overwhelming, like, hey, here's this book, you should read it. It's like, hey, here's a tip on this, and it comes from the book, sure, if you want to get dig deeper, but uh that's that's a great way to lead it, lead a team. So thanks for sharing that. Appreciate that. Of course. So as we wrap up, Ricky, one other question I had was w what are kind of the differences that you've had to navigate maybe culturally, um between you know Guatemala and and your US-based team that you that you support?

Ricky:

So there's definitely a little bit of a cultural shock there. Um, because uh the the main thing that I've come to realize um, and this is what this wasn't really a new thing for me because uh ever since I was young, um my my my aunt, my mom's sister, she married uh a guy from the US, and uh I used to spend time uh during my end-of-year school breaks uh at their home. So I I've been really exposed to US culture before. Um but uh one of the things that definitely hit hard when you are a person from Latin America starting to work with the with people from from North America from the US is that um we are super warm, we are super friendly, we are super um like upbeat, and I'm not saying that uh US Americans are not, but um it's it's a little bit different. I mean, folks from the US are usually a little bit colder, they're less um, I don't know, um excitable, I guess you could say. Um I mean, for example, I will go up to someone and be like, hey, good morning, how are you doing? How's your morning going? Um, did you have breakfast? Uh and then someone from the US will be like, hey, good morning, and and that will be it.

Jeremy:

Yeah.

Ricky:

Um when I had to deal with that uh culture shock with my executives, I came to realize that communication was something that I definitely had to adjust because I had to keep reminding myself you're not talking to someone from Guatemala, you're not talking to someone from Viva who are Latin Americans, you're talking with people from the US and they communicate differently, and that's fine. You just need to adjust the way that you communicate. Um, and there was also an extra layer of complexity there because um of Shippo also has um a very European presence in their leadership team. And that's an extra layer because Europeans are also quite different. Um, I actually work one of my executives, Simon, the head of Go to Market, he's German. Um, so that means that communication needs to be super concise, super to the point. Um, and and that's fine as well. I mean, it's just a matter of knowing who you're talking to, how they communicate, and adjusting yourself accordingly.

Jeremy:

Love it. Thanks so much for sharing, Ricky, and appreciate all the work you've done uh in your career, but also just in the the team that you work with and the other assistants at Viva and how you've mentored and and equipped them well. So appreciate you being on the show. Any any last words for assistants listening uh before we uh wrap up?

Ricky:

I guess the only last words would be thank you for listening. I hope that you learned something. I hope that I was able to contribute my little grain of sand to your growth. Um and uh I look forward to knowing more about how the EA community globally keeps growing and becoming the the leaders that companies need.

Jeremy:

Awesome, awesome. And I'll put your LinkedIn profile in the show notes if that's all right, so people can reach out and say hi. Uh leaderassistant.com slash 360. Leaderassistant.com slash 360. Uh I'll put the Viva website on there too, but you guys can reach out to Ricky and say hi and connect uh and learn more about what he's up to. And yeah, thanks for listening, everyone, and thank you, Ricky, for for taking time out of your day to to chat with me.

Head Shot

Jeremy Burrows

Host