BBW MEMBER INTERVIEW WITH: Wendy Hernández, Chief Assistant and founder of LionsPride Assistant

Wendy Hernández, Chief Assistant and founder of LionsPride Assistant

1 year

I was born in NYC and my family moved to Jamaica Plain when I was 7. I'm a Bostonian all the way!

LionsPride is a full-range administrative consulting service with a focus on supporting high-profile executives, entrepreneurs, and consultants. Our clients are award-winners, trailblazers and industry-experts. We offer four branches of services: administrative support, events and meeting coordination, writing, and social media management. After college, I went into agency recruiting and human resources. I excelled at sales and very quickly became the top recruiter at my firm and took on the role of training others in my team, but just as quickly I burned out and transitioned into Human Resources, which I found to be too rigid for my personality, so I decided follow my passion and go to graduate school for a master in creative writing. While in graduate school, I worked as an assistant for an up-and-coming Assistant Headmaster at a Boston school, and with every promotion, she would bring me along as her assistant. I worked closely with her on special projects, operations, administrative systems, even human resources and grant proposals. It was a unique opportunity and I had a lot of autonomy to design my role. My mentor became a well-known school-turnaround expert, and encouraged me to move into teaching. I went back to graduate school, this time for master of education, and taught for a few years. True to fashion, I became a teacher leader and instructional coach. I commanded the floor as a teacher, brought my creativity to the classroom, and perfected the art of modifying instruction. Yet, what I loved most were the moments when I was planning the logistics for an event, when I was behind my computer creating a PowerPoint presentation, or writing a lesson plan. I missed working on the operations side. While working in education, I built strong relationships with influential leaders who would often share how they wished they had someone like me on their team. I noticed a need and during the Winter break of 2103, I thought of how I could offer services to address that need. I quit education the next month with my mentor's stamp of approval: ``They are going to love you, but if it doesn't work out, you always have a job with me,`` she told me.

They would say that I'm honest, genuine, optimistic, and not the traditional administrative assistant. Yes, I do travel arrangements, calendar management and expense reports, but I can also write proposals, speeches, employment contracts, HR policies, or translate documents in English or Spanish. I am very well-versed, and that has been a real value for my clients.

When you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life.

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

My ability to network. I can work a room!

Make exercising for 30 minutes a day in the morning a habit.

I was in foster care from the age of 14 until I went to college.