Three Distinct Roles - Hire for Success
We know that building the right support team isn’t just about filling a seat — it’s about setting both the professional and the client up for success. Too often, we see organizations looking for “one unicorn hire” to cover every type of support: running a household, managing a leader’s business life, and executing high-level corporate administration.
We understand the impulse — finding a single person to “do it all” sounds efficient. But in reality, combining these three full-time, distinct roles into one is neither fair to the candidate nor likely to succeed. It limits your ability to attract top talent, leads to higher turnover, and creates an environment where even the best hires can feel stretched too thin.
We want to honor the expertise, dedication, and professionalism that each of these career paths represents. This isn’t about shortcomings — it’s about recognizing strengths. Each role requires a different mindset, skill set, and focus to truly shine.
The Three Distinct Roles
1. Personal Assistant (PA) – The Hands-On Personal Life/Household Leader
Primary Focus: Managing and optimizing the personal side of life — from running a household to supporting family logistics and attending to personal endeavors near and far.
Core Strengths: Hands-on execution, domestic vendor oversight, and being the “on-the-ground” (and often, in the air!) point of contact for all personal needs.
Personality Profile: Flexible and detail-driven, thrives in a dynamic, home-centric environment where personal touch and follow-through matter.
Examples:
A PA doesn’t just handle errands — they often:
Oversee home renovations and liaise with contractors.
Manage household budgets for supplies, maintenance, or recurring services.
Hire, train, or work alongside household staff such as a nanny, housekeeper, or chef.
Plan and execute personal events, like family birthday parties or holiday gatherings.
Coordinate personal travel — everything from flights to ground transportation.
Tackle daily errands and organization projects, such as restocking the pantry, running to the pharmacy, or picking up the dog from the groomer.
They’re the hands-on support that keeps life outside of work running smoothly.
2. Executive Personal Assistant (EPA) – The Air Traffic Controller for Busy Multi-Hyphenates
The EPA role is often misunderstood because it straddles both personal and professional worlds. Think of them as “air traffic control” for leaders whose personal and professional lives are deeply intertwined and often blurred.
Unlike an EA who operates in a traditional corporate structure, EPAs often support entrepreneurs, small business owners, investors, authors, professional athletes, or start-up founders. Their work is about orchestrating a complex ecosystem of commitments (supporting the Principal as a whole person) rather than managing a single corporate commitment.
Primary Focus: Roughly 70–90% business-facing but skilled at coordinating personal logistics without physically executing them.
Core Strengths: Coordination, communication, time management, and maintaining alignment across many projects, businesses, or personal endeavors.
Personality Profile: Highly resourceful and polished; thrives in fluid, fast-moving environments where no two weeks look the same; business-facing background.
Examples:
An EPA is the one who will:
Hire the dog walker, not walk the dog themselves.
Liaise with an event planner for the anniversary party to ensure the client’s vision is executed, but not set the table themselves
Manage the travel advisor for the family reunion, ensuring flights, lodging, and experiences are coordinated without booking every detail themselves.
Track schedules across multiple ventures or teams — for example, juggling a podcast recording schedule, investor meetings, and book-signing tours.
Keep all personal and professional commitments synchronized, flagging conflicts before they happen.
Their strength is in managing the moving parts and players, allowing high-profile leaders to stay focused on their ventures rather than the logistics.
3. Executive Assistant (EA) – The Strategic Business Partner
Primary Focus: Primarily business-facing with minimal to no personal support.
Core Strengths: High-level project management, stakeholder communications, managing executive priorities, coordinating across teams, often serving as a strategic partner in the business.
Personality Profile: Thrives in structured, fast-paced corporate environments; excels at prioritizing strategic business goals over household or personal logistics.
Examples:
An EA will:
Manage board meeting preparation and materials.
Coordinate across departments on quarterly goals and deliverables.
Plan and coordinate corporate off-sites and leadership meetings.
Draft and polish professional correspondence or reports.
Ensure investor communications and executive follow-ups stay on track.
Manage a complex business calendar.
Their work stays squarely in the professional realm — the engine behind the executive’s business performance. There might be a light lift here and there on the personal side, such as scheduling a doctor’s appointment, but generally, they are hands off their Executives' personal lives.
Why One Person Can’t Do It All
The desire to find “one exceptional person” who can manage a household, run point on an executive’s business life, and cultivate professional relationships at the highest level is understandable — but it’s not realistic.
Here’s why:
1. Support Professionals Are Exceptionally Hard-Working
We want to be clear: this is not about unwillingness or lack of dedication. The people who step into these roles — whether PA, EPA, or EA — are some of the hardest-working professionals you’ll ever meet. Their careers revolve around making someone else’s life run smoothly. They work largely behind the scenes, anticipating needs before they’re ever spoken — often without recognition or thanks.
A great assistant doesn’t clock out when there’s still something standing in the way of their principal’s success. They are willing to cross blurred lines between tasks — shifting from a corporate scheduling crunch to a personal errand — if that’s what the day requires.
But no matter how committed they are, there are still limits of time, energy, and focus. It’s the structure of the role — not their work ethic — that becomes unsustainable when three demanding jobs are compressed into one.
2. The Invisible Work Behind the Scenes
Much of what support professionals do is invisible — and yet indispensable.
The PA who smooths over a scheduling conflict with the contractor so the renovation stays on track.
The EPA who notices that a last-minute investor dinner overlaps with a child’s school recital and rearranges the schedule, drives, and communications to honor both commitments.
The EA who quietly nudges a board member to respond so a key decision isn’t delayed.
These moments rarely appear in a job description or report, but they’re what make an executive’s day run without friction. Their success is measured by what doesn’t go wrong.
3. Specialization Matters — and So Does Focus
Each of these roles — PA, EPA, and EA — represents a full-time commitment with its own priorities, tools, and rhythms.
A PA may spend an entire morning coordinating with a contractor on a home renovation, troubleshooting a household repair, and fielding vendor calls.
An EA may be immersed in preparing the executive for a board presentation or resolving scheduling conflicts with senior leadership.
An EPA may be focused on balancing the needs of multiple business ventures while ensuring personal commitments stay in sync.
When one person is expected to span all three worlds consistently, the result will be constant juggling, diluted attention, and inevitable burnout. There simply isn’t enough time in a day to give all areas the focus they deserve.
4. The Human Energy of Relationship-Building
Beyond the task lists lies relationship work — the trust and rapport that makes everything function.
Household staff and vendors: A PA invests in the relationships with the nanny, housekeeper, gardener, or travel vendor so that things flow seamlessly at home.
Corporate relationships: An EA builds credibility with board members, department heads, and external partners, serving as a reliable conduit for communication.
Hybrid coordination: An EPA needs both — trust from personal vendors and respect from professional peers. They are to pick and prioritize based on their scope and focus.
These connections take time, emotional energy, and consistency to nurture. Expecting one person to build deep, genuine relationships in such different spheres is like asking them to work two separate jobs at the same time. Even the most committed assistant can only stretch so far.
5. Environment Switching Is Draining
Switching between boardroom-level tasks and household logistics multiple times in a single day creates constant mental gear-shifting:
Drafting a sensitive investor email one minute, then troubleshooting a Wi-Fi outage at home the next.
Negotiating a contract with a publisher mid-morning, then pivoting to coordinate with a dog walker that afternoon.
Even seasoned pros who are used to wearing many hats feel the energy cost of that continual pivoting, with no end in sight. The strain isn’t from a lack of effort — it’s that focus itself is finite. Can you imagine a CFO also covering the desk of the CTO?
6. Career Paths, Strengths, and Temperament
These roles reflect different career journeys and personal strengths:
Many top EAs follow a corporate support path, thriving in structured environments, strategic scheduling, and high-stakes communications.
Many top PAs come from a domestic support path, excelling at hands-on logistics, vendor management, and making a household feel seamless.
EPAs often bridge both worlds, frequently supporting entrepreneurs, founders, and multi-business leaders.
It’s not just about skills — it’s about temperament, style, and interests. The person who finds joy in coordinating a gala dinner or managing home renovations may not be energized by quarterly reporting cycles. Likewise, a top-tier EA may not wish to oversee household staff.
Some professionals can cross both bridges successfully — but many either cannot, or choose not to, because they know where they do their best work. Forcing one person to span all worlds doesn’t serve them or the client.
7. Respecting Limits Makes for Sustainable Success
The best support professionals are defined by their dedication and resilience. They’re used to working long hours and doing what it takes to make their principals thrive.
But thriving is a two-way street. To keep that energy sustainable, their roles must have clear boundaries and realistic expectations.
When you design a role that honors both their talent and their limits, you’ll not only attract stronger candidates — you’ll also foster loyalty, longevity, and exceptional performance.
Setting the Stage for Success
We encourage clients to think about the “who, what, and when”:
Who: Do you need a primarily business-facing professional, a household manager, or a hybrid EPA who thrives in entrepreneurial spaces?
What: What are the top priorities for the next 6–12 months? Let’s focus on a person who can focus on the pain points that are most important.
When: If you do need both business and household support, is it better to stagger hires so each person can build a strong foundation?
The best hires happen when expectations are transparent and aligned with market norms. By respecting the specialized skill sets of each role, you’ll attract stronger candidates, create a more sustainable working relationship, and see greater long-term success.
At Pennyworth Projects, we’re here to help you clarify priorities, shape the right job descriptions, and build a support team that works seamlessly for your needs — and theirs.