Laura Belgrado is an internationally recognised Executive Assistant, Digital Coach, Trainer, and Ad‑Interim Senior EA with more than 30 years of experience supporting leaders in global corporate environments. She currently serves as Senior Executive Assistant at Metagenics EMEA while also operating part‑time as a freelance digital transformation coach and trainer for administrative professionals.

Laura holds a bachelor’s degree in office–Business Administration & Languages and is a certified Executive Coach through AoEC and ICF. Fluent in Dutch, French, English, German and Spanish, she is known for her ability to work seamlessly across cultures and build strong, trust‑based relationships with senior leaders and diverse teams.

Her career includes senior support and business management roles at international powerhouses such as Microsoft and Mars Inc., where she gained extensive expertise in operations, budget management, organisational effectiveness, and C‑suite advisory. She has partnered with global CEOs as a strategic thinking partner, helping optimise decision‑making, streamline execution and strengthen leadership impact.

Beyond her corporate work, Laura is widely regarded as one of Europe’s most inspiring voices in the Executive Assistant profession. She has delivered keynotes, masterclasses, and coaching programs around the world, helping Executive and Personal Assistants elevate their strategic contribution, embrace digital fluency, and rediscover the significance and influence of the modern Assistant role.

Renowned for her human‑centred approach, practical insights and forward‑thinking vision, Laura continues to shape the future of the administrative profession — empowering Assistants to develop confidence, capability, and leadership presence in an ever‑evolving business landscape.

Lucy Brazier is CEO of Marcham Publishing, specialist publishers of Executive Support – a global training magazine dedicated to the professional development needs of senior and aspiring administrative professionals.

Lucy is one of the world’s leading authorities on the administrative profession.

Her  passion  is  for  the  assistant  role  to  be  truly  recognised  as  a  career  and  not  just  a  job.  Her  formidable  training  expertise  and  speaking  style  have  given  her  opportunities  to train, present and chair in over 45 countries at over 400 events, including chairing the 2015 World Administrator Summit in Papua New Guinea. This has created much needed discussions from encouraging executive assistants in Blue Chip companies to work towards becoming centres of excellence within their companies to explaining why college students should see the assistant role as proper profession with a career path.

Lucy has a unique overview of the role and where it is heading. With access to the most forward thinking, passionate and knowledgeable authorities on the role in the world as well as personally meeting and speaking to literally thousands of assistants over the last seven years, Lucy’s knowledge of the market and what assistants all over the world are facing on a day-to-day basis are second to none.

Lucy’s  unique  insight  into  the  world  of  the  executive  assistants  brings  a  distinct  qual-ity  and  depth  to  her  specialist  development  programmes.  She  continuously  researches,  develops and delivers to bring the most current, innovative and challenging development programmes to support assistants in rapidly changing business environments to meet the increasing skill sets required of senior assistants.

Lucy has been a publisher and events organiser for over 29 years. Lucy previously worked as a publishing director for Wilmington PLC, and has managed a team based in Singapore, New  York,  Germany  and  London  responsible  for  13  magazines,  12  international  confer-ences, awards, trade show attendance and marketing for EMAP. Other companies worked for include: The Times, The Independent, Centaur Communications and Glass’s Guide.

Ann Hiatt has been an Executive Business Partner for 15 years and has partnered with three major giants of technology. She is currently Executive Business Partner and Chief of Staff to Eric Schmidt (Executive Chairman) at Google. She has formerly partnered with Marissa Mayer (CEO of Yahoo!) and Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon.com). Ann also consults with executives of Fortune 500 companies and Silicon Valley start ups on how to set up an effective executive office and support team.

Ann is a native of Seattle and studied International Studies at the University of Washington before moving to California to begin a PhD in Scandinavian Studies at UC Berkeley. Ann lived in Sweden for 2 years and speaks Swedish fluently. In her elusive free time Ann enjoys running, scuba diving and traveling.

Helen Monument inspires and encourages Assistants to be the best they can be, by sharing over three decades of experience as a leading management support professional. Helen has worked at international companies in diverse roles, from Receptionist to Secretary to Office Manager and Business Support Team Leader, so she understands the profession inside out. At her company Monumental Assistance Helen provides training and coaching to Assistants at all levels. She is passionate about giving back to the profession that provided so many wonderful opportunities for her to grow and develop by ‘paying it forward’ all over the world by helping others to become Monumental Assistants.

Breaking news: Helen is currently writing her first book “The ABC of Leadership for Assistants” Helen is also the Chair of the World Administrators Alliance, a not-for-profit association representing Administrative Associations, Networks and industry stakeholders across the globe. Its aims are to guide, develop, influence and elevate the global administrative profession, creating a community where administrative professionals around the world can speak with one voice. The WA-Alliance produced the Global Skills Matrix, the award-winning, career development framework based on research from over 3000 administrative professionals in 61 countries.

After 30 years working in the Secretarial field, Sue became the owner of Sue France Training in 2009 and is a qualified learning and development practitioner, a Neuro Linguistic Programming Master Practitioner, a Tet­raMap behavioral profiling practitioner, Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Fellow of the Institute of Administrative Management and a neuroscience enthusiast. Sue has been an assistant at every level including board level. She has also been a UK training manager with the responsibility of 600 EAs where she had her own EA and therefore understands the role from both sides.

She is a world-renowned motivational trainer, coach and author and has conducted workshops in 29 countries including Middle East, Africa, Asia, Australia, America and Europe.

Sue is The UK Times Crème DHL PA of the year 2006 and a finalist in the EUMA Smart PA of the year 2007 out of 25 countries. Sue has been a judge for several PA of the Year competitions.

She is the author of two best-selling and award winning books: “The Definitive Executive Assistant & Managerial Handbook” & “The Defini­tive Personal Assistant & Secretarial Handbook”. Both books have been endorsed by the Institute of Administrative Management and are used on business admin courses and by secretarial colleges.