Her Story
About Melanie
I've been in the administrative field for about 30 years, and this journey has been incredible. I started as a receptionist and within 8 months became an administrative assistant by teaching myself every program I could get my hands on - Word, Google, Lotus Notes back in the day. I quickly realized I had a personality that connected people with each other. If something was discussed on one team and I heard it on another team, rather than having two different teams work on it, I'd bring everyone together. I've been fortunate to work at startups and long-term business companies, connecting with wonderful people along the way. For the past 22 years, I've supported C-suite executives including CFOs, CTOs, CMOs, chiefs of staff, and finance leaders. I'm currently at Meta where I've been for nearly 14 years, supporting the discipline head of design. Previously, I supported the head of design for Instagram and before that, another discipline design lead at Meta for about 8 and a half years. Today, my main area of expertise is coaching and mentoring - both managing up with my executive and supporting my peers and the new admins who come into the field. I ensure they have everything they need, including learning AI-native tools, and I help my executive see around corners. I prefer to stand behind the curtain, watching my team and leaders flourish, which I consider my greatest accomplishment.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Melanie
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think I've just been given the opportunity to continue working in this field. I really like to take care of people, and I think that's a key factor in being an EA - just wanting to take care of others and ensuring that they are successful and enjoying our success through that. I think personality-wise, maybe just being able to connect with people on their level, because at the end of the day, we are all human. We all have our struggles, we all have family or personal things going on, and having that understanding, and people feeling warm to me to be able to communicate - I think that's really where it's been for me.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Give yourself some grace. Take it one day at a time. And love what you do.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
AI, everything AI right now. There is a lot of fear for admins in the world - is AI going to take over our role? I think it's really important, and I educate admins all the time, that it's important for us to be on the forefront of it, learning what we can do to help it learn, for it to elevate our role and our career, because there will still be a space for us. AI can't provide human touch. AI can't walk into a room and make sure that the temperature is fine, or that people are being seated correctly, or if there's any last-minute needs, or telling a joke in the front because there is a struggle with the AV equipment. We are always going to be relevant, we just need to ensure that we make ourselves relevant by learning the tools, understanding how they can help us in our day-to-day, and that actually opens up for us to be able to do more of what we love to do in our careers.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Doing the right thing. Always. Whether that be making the hard decision to tell someone no, that can't be done, or we should do it this way. Or if there's personality struggles between people, ensuring that everybody is heard, and a good decision is being made for the betterment of the business. Yeah, I think that's it for me.
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