Latest news with #CEOs
Forbes
an hour ago
- Business
- Forbes
Fractional And AI-Optimized: Finding Success With Executive Assistants
Kenzie Biggins is the founder and CEO of Worxbee, a leading provider of Virtual Executive Assistant (VEA) services. For years, the executive assistant (EA) was a luxury afforded only to the most senior leaders in large enterprises. Full-time, in-office and deeply embedded in the daily rhythms of a single executive, the traditional EA played a vital role—but one that often remained inaccessible to early-stage founders, startup teams and even mid-level leaders trying to scale smartly. Today, as founder and CEO of a virtual executive assistant company, I've noticed that paradigm is shifting. A new model of support is taking hold: Fractional, remote and AI-optimized EAs are increasingly bringing strategic thinking and efficiency to leaders who don't need (or can't justify) full-time admin help. The Shift Toward Fractional Support Fractional support isn't a watered-down version of full-time help. It can be a right-sized solution for the way many modern leaders work. In an age of lean teams and agile decision making, some executives simply don't need 40 hours of support per week. They need 10 to 30 hours of focused, high-impact support from someone who understands their priorities and adds value without adding complexity. Fractional EAs can manage everything from inbox management and scheduling to project coordination and internal communication—in a model that scales with the business. This makes executive support accessible to the C-suite as well as team leads, heads of departments and startup founders. The Cost Advantage Beyond flexibility and fit, cost can be a major advantage. Hiring a full-time EA can be a six-figure investment (registration required) when accounting for salary, benefits and overhead. Fractional support offers access to experienced professionals without the full-time price tag. Leaders pay for the hours they need, making it a smart use of resources for growing businesses. And unlike traditional temp support, fractional EAs build long-term working relationships, often becoming trusted extensions of the leadership team. The Role Of AI In Making Fractional Support Possible AI is making high-level, fractional support more viable and valuable. Tools like Calendly, Grammarly, ChatGPT and Notion have changed what EAs can do in a fraction of the time. I've noticed that an EA who embraces these tools can spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time on strategic ones—like prepping a CEO for investor meetings and creating more efficient systems and processes. More importantly, AI helps fractional EAs support more clients while maintaining high quality. When calendar automation and task management are handled by smart tools, the human EA can focus on communication nuance, decision-making prep and forward-thinking support. Why Strategic Partnership Still Matters Despite the rise of tools, I've found that what sets an effective EA apart remains the same: judgment, discretion, emotional intelligence—and above all, proactivity. The best EAs aren't just doers—they're strategic partners who bring clarity, organization and calm to the chaos of leadership. They anticipate needs before they're voiced. They solve problems before they escalate and create space for leaders to focus on what matters most. AI can't replicate the intuition behind a well-timed question like, 'Do you still want to keep this meeting if prep time is limited?' It can't identify bottlenecks in a sales pipeline before they become roadblocks or intuit the perfect moment to nudge a stalled partnership forward. But an experienced EA can—and does. What's changed is that now, thanks to AI and remote work tools, that kind of strategic partnership can be delivered in a fractional model. When Fractional Might Not Be The Right Fit Fractional support isn't ideal for every leader. If you need in-person help, frequent real-time responsiveness or hands-on support across a wide range of functions, a full-time EA may be the better fit. Fractional works best when priorities are clear, communication is streamlined and the leader prioritizes strategic over reactive work. What Leaders Should Look For If you're considering EA support but aren't ready for full time, here are four key considerations: 1. Think beyond tasks. A good fractional EA isn't just someone who "does things" for you. They should think strategically, adapt quickly and help you make better use of your time. 2. Look for tech fluency. AI tools are changing the game. Look for an EA who is comfortable with AI platforms, project management tools, automation platforms and other digital systems that increase speed without sacrificing quality. 3. Prioritize compatibility. Even in a fractional model, the relationship matters. Try to find someone whose communication preferences, pace and work style align with yours. Trust and alignment are just as important as skills. 4. Insist on initiative. Great EAs don't wait to be told what to do. Look for someone who proactively identifies opportunities to improve efficiency, surface important information and reduce friction in your day-to-day operations. How To Onboard A Fractional EA For Success To get the most from a fractional EA, a strong start matters. Here's how to set the foundation for success: • Prioritize key areas where they'll add the most value (e.g., inbox, calendar, internal ops). • Clarify communication cadence, tools and response time expectations. • Share context on your work style, team dynamics and recurring pain points. • Establish clear goals for the first 30, 60 and 90 days. • Treat onboarding as a process, not a one-time task. Check in early and often. Building trust early is key—fractional doesn't mean distant. Strong rapport helps your EA work with greater autonomy and impact. Even five hours of support a week can make a difference when there's alignment from day one. Final Thoughts The future of executive support isn't about going back to the old model or replacing humans with machines. It's about blending the two—giving more leaders access to high-quality support in a way that fits the pace of modern business. High-level executive support is no longer reserved for the top 1%—it's accessible to founders, small business owners and emerging leaders who are ready to grow. Fractional and AI-optimized might sound like buzzwords. But for leaders trying to stay focused, stay sane and scale smart, this model is delivering real value—and redefining what it means to have the right support at the right time. Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?
Forbes
an hour ago
- Business
- Forbes
The AI Illusion: Why CEOs Must Confront The Gap Between Vision And Reality
Old way or new way (in yellow) roadmarking What's faster, the speed of AI or the speed of obsolescence? In reality, AI is evolving fast, but alignment and execution among legacy organizations is lagging even faster. While most CEOs and board members believe they are steering their companies confidently into the AI era, new data reveals a sobering disconnect between the C-suite and employees on what's actually happening inside their organizations. According to an Axios survey that interviewed CEOs and their employees, separately, AI vision, strategy, and capacity may be a dangerous illusion. According to the research, CEOs may feel they are steering their companies into an AI-powered future. But if the people responsible for delivering on that vision don't feel informed, empowered, or included, then the transformation will fail to take root. Sound familiar? AI Strategy: C-Suites vs. Employees Let's break it down! C-Suites are mistaking AI vision with tactical strategy. And they're mistaking AI strategy for strategy activation. Employees don't feel the impact, which means vision isn't articulated and strategy isn't embedded. The Illusion of Vision and Strategy Nearly 90 of C-Suites say their company has an AI strategy. Yet only 57% of employees believe that to be true. This suggests that while the strategy might exist in executive slide decks or boardroom conversations, it hasn't been translated into the day-to-day reality for most employees. For them, the strategy is either invisible or irrelevant. Again, sound familiar? The Illusion of Success Executives also believe they've made meaningful progress. Seventy-five percent say the company has been successful in adopting AI over the past 12 months. But just 45% of employees agree. If employees aren't feeling the impact of success, that means the change isn't penetrating deeply enough. If those delivering the work don't feel the benefits, innovation won't scale. The Illusion of Control Another significant divide emerges when asked whether the company's approach to AI is 'well-controlled and highly strategic.' While 73% of C-suite leaders say yes, only 47% of employees agree. That's a 26-point gap in perception and reality! A strategy is only as effective as it is understood and executed across the organization. If people perceive confusion or chaos where leadership sees control, well, you can imagine what happens next. From Illusion to Introspection If the first set of data reveals a disconnect between leadership and the workforce, the second reveals something even more revealing. Here, we shift to a profound introspection among CEOs themselves. They reveal more than disconnects in communication. They're disconnects of modern leadership. The illusion of progress is being shattered by the very leaders tasked with shaping the future. CEOs are quietly confessing that AI is transforming how businesses operate. And it's redefining who leads, how decisions are made, and what it takes to stay relevant. Let's compare these findings to the Dataiku/Harris, 'Global AI Confessions Report: CEO Edition.' This survey of 500 CEOs worldwide unveils startling admissions and revelations of Al's impact on corporate leadership and competitive survival. What it means (WIM): The boardroom is no longer immune to disruption. AI literacy is now a fiduciary responsibility. Boards must evolve from oversight to insight, becoming fluent in AI, risk, and opportunity at the same pace as the technology itself. What to do (WTD): Establish an AI Board Advisor Program to embed AI-powered agents and advisors alongside traditional governance models. Test AI-simulated board scenarios to understand what it sees that your board doesn't. WIM: Strategic planning is no longer a purely human exercise. The executive bench must now compete and collaborate with algorithmic intelligence and do so quickly and visibly. The future leadership team will be hybrid: human + digital counterparts. WTD: Augment strategic planning with AI agents that simulate market changes, competitor responses, and future scenarios (agents as digital twins FTW!) Redesign the org chart with AI-native roles. Train your teams to collaborate with AI not just as tools, but as cognitive partners. WIM: The AI clock is ticking, and the innovation imperative is rising. AI native companies are moving the game from an era of AI experimentation to execution. AI-forward boards and shareholders will learn to see AI beyond a tool or technology investment, and instead as a performance expectation and competitive driver. WTD: CEOs must shift from exploring peer-driven AI use cases to engineering AI-native business models. Leaders must stop waiting and start leading. Create an AI Transformation Office to orchestrate enterprise-wide AI initiatives, beyond the AI 'status quo' pilots. Tie AI metrics to business outcomes including, revenue growth, margin expansion, NPS, time to market. Develop a real AI vision! Publish a 12-month AI innovation roadmap to the board, employees, and investors. Then, deliver and report against it. WIM: CEOs understand, or are starting to, grasp the stakes and are stepping in and stepping up. But involvement doesn't equal empowerment. AI readiness, AI fluency, and AI empowerment must be democratized across the enterprise, as tied to the vision. WTD: Build AI leadership coalitions or cross-functional stakeholder groups across functions, influencing but not limited to IT, to scale decision-making. Bring in the outsiders to develop and execute an AI upskilling initiative across all management tiers. And perhaps the least intuitive of the bunch, distribute decision-making authority to AI-augmented teams trained to act with speed and insight. From Reckoning to Renaissance This is a reckoning and the beginning of something bigger. It's AI transformation tied to leadership transformation. The AI era demands a new leadership mindset. A new vision for what's possible. A new language. A new social contract between leaders and their organizations. That starts by closing the gap between perception and reality. It means rethinking leadership. It means moving beyond platitudes. You can't scale what your teams don't understand. And you can't scale what you do not understand. This moment demands a bold new vision and a clear strategy. It demands action and empowerment across the organization. It also demands measurable alignment between boardroom intent, C-Level promises, and frontline execution. Without vision and alignment, AI remains theater. Without shared understanding, transformation stalls. And without communication and enablement, trust fails to materialize. The companies that succeed unite AI and business leadership, innovation, and culture. The renaissance starts with a mindshift.
CNN
15 hours ago
- Business
- CNN
A windfall for ICE, what smartphones do to kids, widening pay gap: Catch up on the day's stories
👋 Welcome to 5 Things PM! The pay gap between America's corporate leaders and their workers grew even larger in 2024. A new report found that CEOs at the nation's 500 largest public companies took home 285 times as much as the typical US worker's paycheck of $49,500. Here's what else you might have missed during your busy day. When we look back at President Donald Trump's big agenda law in a few years, its historic expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement could be what we remember most. The agency received a huge amount of money — and it's also extremely unpopular. The Department of Education has paused forgiveness for income-driven repayment plans, and it comes at a time of major change for the system. Interest will start accruing on August 1 for millions of other borrowers. Here's what you need to know. Children younger than 13 should not have smartphones, new research concluded. Their phone use was associated with suicidal thoughts, worse emotional regulation, lower self-worth and detachment from reality — especially among girls. Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a medieval knight buried under a shuttered ice cream parlor in Poland. The ornate tombstone and bones of an adult male were remarkably well-preserved and date back to the 13th or 14th century. Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace paid supermodels up to $30,000 each to appear in his shows. A new retrospective celebrates his work 'in-between the old and the new.' GET '5 THINGS' IN YOUR INBOX If your day doesn't start until you're up to speed on the latest headlines, then let us introduce you to your new favorite morning fix. Sign up here for the '5 Things' newsletter. 🍻 Serving up community: Welcome to Howdy's, a bar along the Guadalupe River in Kerrville. Owner Bob Canales calls it 'one of the last Texas honky tonks' and said he reopened quickly after the tragic flooding so people would have a place to get together. Bryan Kohberger sentenced to life without parole for Idaho student murders Exclusive: Newly discovered photos and video shed fresh light on Trump's ties to Jeffrey Epstein Trump's AI plan: Pull back restraints on tech 🪲 That's how many hand-bound books restoration workers are removing from the shelves of a medieval abbey in Hungary to save them from a beetle infestation. 📸 Forgotten photos: For decades, photography studios in Lagos, Nigeria, documented special occasions, celebrations and people's everyday lives. Karl Ohiri and Riikka Kassinen spent years hunting down photographers, cataloging their archives and creating exhibitions of the work. 'It's hard to describe how difficult it is to play a first match after so much time off.' Venus Williams 🎾 Going strong at 45: She defeated fellow American Peyton Stearns in straight sets at the DC Open and became the oldest player to win a singles match on the WTA Tour in more than 20 years. 🎵 Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham are re-releasing their rare debut record 'Buckingham Nicks.' Which popular band did they later join?A. ABBAB. Fleetwood MacC. Jefferson AirplaneD. The Pretenders⬇️ Scroll down for the answer. ❤️ Love at first flight: A Southern belle and a London boy met while flying across the Atlantic Ocean in 1982. Then came a whirlwind wedding. Watch and discover what has kept their relationship special ever since. 👋 We'll see you tomorrow.🧠 Quiz answer: B. Nicks and Buckingham put out their first and only studio album as a duo in 1973 before joining Fleetwood Mac.📧 Check out all of CNN's newsletters. Today's edition of 5 Things PM was edited and produced by CNN's Kimberly Richardson, Sarah Hutter and Chris Good.
CNN
19 hours ago
- Business
- CNN
The typical employee would have had to start working before the Revolutionary War to match average CEO's 2024 pay
The pay gap between America's corporate leaders and their workers grew even larger in 2024, according to the AFL-CIO's annual Executive Paywatch report, released Wednesday. CEOs at the nation's 500 largest public companies took home $18.9 million last year, or 285 times as much as the typical US worker's paycheck of $49,500. That's up from a ratio of 268 to 1 a year earlier, according to the AFL-CIO, a powerful federation of labor unions representing 15 million workers. The typical employee would have had to start working in 1740 to earn what the average CEO received in 2024, the report noted. CEO pay increased 7% in 2024 from the prior year. It topped the prior peak of $18.3 million in 2021, though the ratio was 324 to 1 that year. The typical private sector worker's raise last year was 3%, the AFL-CIO said, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data. In its report this year, the AFL-CIO highlighted that the sweeping tax and spending cuts package that President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4 will provide CEOs with far bigger tax breaks than workers. The average CEO will receive a tax cut of nearly $490,000 from the permanent extension of the lower individual income tax rates, which were initially reduced in Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the report found. That compares to a $765 tax break for the typical US worker. Unlike workers, salaries are not the largest component of CEOs' compensation. Nearly half of the top executives' total pay was restricted stock awards, and another $4 million were bonuses. The highest-paid CEO of an S&P 500 company was Patrick Smith of Axon Enterprise, which manufactures Tasers and other weapons for law enforcement and the military. He received a package of nearly $165 million. The report listed Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol as making 6,666 times more than the company's typical worker, the largest pay gap in the S&P 500. (Niccol took over the company's helm last September. The AFL-CIO annualized his compensation, listing it as nearly $98 million, compared to the typical Starbucks worker's pay of less than $15,000.)
Zawya
a day ago
- Business
- Zawya
Egyptian businesses ready to invest in Nigeria — Envoy
The Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Immigration and Expatriates, Badr Abdel Aaty, has expressed the readiness of Businessmen, Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of Egyptian origin, to commence offering goods and services in Nigeria. Aaty disclosed this when he paid a courtesy visit to his Nigerian counterpart, Amb. Yusuf Tuggar in Abuja on Monday. Accompanied by CEOs of the 30 biggest companies in Egypt, the Minister listed agriculture, pharmaceuticals, industry, energy, mineral, oil, and gas as some of the areas of interest to the investors. 'I'm l eading a big delegation. We have more than 30 giant companies in Egypt, in different sectors, in agriculture, in pharmaceuticals, in industry, in energy, in mineral, oil and gas, you name it. They are here because there are a lot of opportunities, a conducive environment for investment and we are committed to come, to invest, to do business here based on a win-win situation', he said. Speaking further, Aaty lamented that the trade relationship between Nigeria and Egypt was far below what it should be: 'The current trade volume between our two countries does not meet or correspond with the weight of two giants in Africa, Nigeria and Egypt. 'This is very minimal. We have to double and even triple the trade volume in order to match the weight of the two countries. And we are fully committed, we have the political will from Nigeria, from Egypt to do and I'm fully committed to work with my dear brother Minister Yusuf to hopefully double and triple the trade volume in the near future', he said. He, however, informed that they were working on instructions to the heads of government of both countries to enhance bilateral cooperation relations. 'Our political relationship is more than excellent, but we have to do more on economic trade and investment based on a win-win situation. Nigeria is the largest country in Africa. Nigeria is the gateway to Africa, not only to the west and central Africa, but to all of Africa. 'That's why, as my brother Youssef mentioned, I'm starting my tour from here, from Abuja, in recognition of the strategic status of this great country. The two leaders met before in Rio de Janeiro on the side of the G20 meeting and they agreed to elevate our relationship into a comprehensive and strategic partnership and this is our task as foreign ministers to do more and to enhance our cooperation', he said. Responding, Amb. Tuggar noted that they had good intentions and expressed readiness to expedite actions on their request: 'They have one of the largest players that has successfully reclaimed record amounts of land, turned desert into fertile land that is producing food in Egypt. They have come here, and they are interested in investing and participating in Nigeria. 'Of course, there are some of the other players, for instance, the power and energy sector, electricity and swede, the likes of them are already here. They are looking at opportunities in gas and in the mineral sector. 'Both countries are also going to establish a joint commission so that all of these initiatives, including the chamber of commerce that we have, would be subsumed under that so that we can drive it faster,' he said. Copyright © 2022 Nigerian Tribune Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
