“ I love to find an opportunity where I can work with a CEO and their team to reimagine and redesign the way they work together .”
Choose your own adventure
With 20 + years in the role , Tammy Tantschev , EA to the CEO at Envato ( the global leader in digital creative assets ) admits the most of her professional development and learning came from peers , managers or mistakes she made along the way …
Please tell us a little about your career journey , highlights and motivations . I ’ d describe my career journey as an EA like a ‘ choose your own adventure ’ novel . I think one of the most attractive things about this career path is the way you get to work across industries and locations with ease . The skillset is highly transferable , and I like to take advantage of that . Highlights for me including working as the EA to the managing director of Red Bull Australia in Sydney and EA to the CEO and the chief inventor of REA Group in Melbourne , all the way through to working as EA to the head of media affairs at Saudi Aramco while living on a compound in Saudi Arabia ( a job ad I simply found on Seek . com , by the way ). It can be one of the most interesting and diverse career paths going if you are inclined to travel it and know how to steer it right – I think that ’ s one of its best kept secrets .
What do you look for in an EA role ? I seek out roles that will play to my strengths , which for me is working strategically with CEOs and their leadership teams and running my own projects and events . I aim to partner with my executive – and that means finding someone who works without a lot of ego and who will appreciate me as a professional peer . Personally , I do love to find an opportunity where I can work with a CEO and their team to reimagine and redesign the way they work together . This shouldn ’ t be underestimated when hiring an experienced EA . If , like me , you have 20 + years of this career on the clock then we have likely seen more CEOs and more executive teams at work than our own exec has . It would be crazy not to harness that information and put it into practice . Up close I have seen great leaders and leadership teams at work , as well as teams that struggled . And I feel I understand what that difference is . I can help a team put the right systems and habits into practice .
What training and professional development have you undertaken ? Most that I ’ ve learned that has been core to my professional development I have learned on the job either from peers and managers , or just the mistakes I made along the way . The
“ I love to find an opportunity where I can work with a CEO and their team to reimagine and redesign the way they work together .”
22 Executive PA | Summer Issue 2024