Jennifer Olanikawo

I currently work at Thorpe Specialty Service, a construction company that deals with specialized services, where I serve as an Executive Assistant supporting seven executives both internationally and here in the United States, including our subcompany in Canada. My role is incredibly diverse - I basically connect systems together for my company, complete initiatives, coordinate and communicate to ensure things flow effectively. There really isn't a singular thing that I do; it's pretty much systems and operations, including events, traditional calendar management, expense reporting, finance reports, and really all of it. Whatever we need to get things rolling, I'm pretty much the person that gets called to do it. My journey to this role began in the United States Navy, where I served for 15 years before retiring. What I was doing in the military was essentially the same work - I was the commanding officer's admin or admiral's admin, running departments and taking care of our leaders at each duty station. When I went through career transition, that's when I learned the civilian language and discovered that what I'd been doing was executive administration. I've now been doing this work on the civilian side for three years. A pivotal moment in my career came when I worked for my first female captain in the Navy. One day she came to me frazzled at 2:30 PM, asking me to not let anyone else see her because she hadn't even been able to eat her lunch. That's when I realized I was no longer just a basic admin shuffling papers - I was called to make my leaders' lives easier by doing operational and strategic things. It changed the way I viewed everything I do and even changed my educational path. I'm currently in a doctorate program for organizational leadership at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia, having just finished my master's degree in the same field. I love everything about how systems run, why they work, why they don't work, why they stop, and how to fix them, because I see that you can have such a bigger influence even behind the scenes as somebody who does executive administration.