A specialist provider of executive personal assistant services to ambitious business leaders and entrepreneurs has appointed a new franchisee to cover Bournemouth and Christchurch.
The Passionate PA has entered its second decade of operations with new recruit Jenni Bowman on board.
Services range from one-off administrative tasks to project and event management, marketing strategy and business development.
Since Director Kate Chastey chose a franchising model over direct employment in 2016, The Passionate PA has gone from strength to strength. Clients include established businesses of all sizes, start-ups and individual entrepreneurs with multiple business interests.
Jenni has career experience as a personal assistant and office manager to Stephen Bath of Bath Travel.
After the sale to Hays Travel, she helped with all aspects of Hays’ property management across 70 branches and 40 commercial and residential sites.
Jenni said: “I’m really looking forward to helping ambitious people grow their businesses and organisations. It can be really intense running a business and you quickly experience to-do lists that can easily overflow. That’s where The Passionate PA offers tremendous value. We work in partnership with clients, discussing priorities face-to-face, taking the strain off their shoulders and supporting them to drive change, build momentum and generate results.”
Kate said: “More and more clients are appreciating the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of using a freelance executive PA, a ‘super-PA’ if you like, as they seek to grow their businesses.
“Much of the appeal is the ability to pay for a resourceful, experienced PA service just when you need it, rather than paying out a full-time salary with all the costs involved. Because each franchisee is a business owner, and we all have exposure to lots of other ambitious businesses, we often add so much more value than an employed PA too.
“We are building a very powerful team at The Passionate PA. We each have a wealth of business experience ranging from corporate backgrounds, time in creative agencies and even managing operations in a family business. Most clients value our business advice as much as our ability to multi-task and get results.”
Jenni joins the team at the same time as fellow franchisee Claire Bartlett sets up a new operation for the New Forest and south Wiltshire.
Claire spent 17 years at the banking and financial services multinational JP Morgan in Bournemouth, rising to head a team of specialist portfolio managers. Most recently she was a business development manager for the Fordingbridge-based office supplies company XConsumables.
Jenni and Claire follow in the footsteps of Debbie Frith, another Dorset-based franchisee who joined two years ago and now works with clients including Poole-based businesses Shrinkwrap and QuadVision.
Kate added: “Jenni and Claire are ready for the challenge of building their own business, and with our exceptional team supporting them I’m sure they will both do brilliantly. All our franchisees are commercially minded and focused on efficiency. They’ll be working across multiple clients which requires excellent communication and organisational skills, but it’s also an incredibly rewarding career choice.”
Gary Neild, Managing Director of client Blue Sky Financial Planning, based in Poole, said: “The Passionate PA offers an extensive skillset to growing businesses. I’ve met each of the team and their individual backgrounds are impressive. They work really hard to understand and support the future of their clients’ business and, from my own experience, I believe that is an exciting prospect for many entrepreneurs.”