When I started at Nobly in 2024, the EA role was new – both to me and to Nobly. I graduated from my master’s in Strategy, Organisation and Leadership in the summer of 2024. During that period I was looking for my first full-time position, and I came across the title Executive Assistant.
It caught me right away. The role sums up everything I learned during my studies, so it was my chance to see all of that come to life in practice.
The EA role was new to me, but also to Nobly. That meant I spent a lot of time in the beginning understanding where Morten, Nobly’s CEO, needed assistance, and there has been plenty of room for me to put my own stamp on the job.
Quite early on in my time at Nobly, an opportunity arose for me to work more within the People & Culture field. After we hired our P&C Partner Signe, it was clear to me that I wanted to stay involved there. Luckily there was support for that, and I received my new title in January 2026.
As an EA you are very much alone with your tasks, so becoming part of P&C with a colleague has been incredibly rewarding for me. Both because I get to learn from someone with more experience than me, and because we have found a good sparring partner in each other.
No two weeks are the same. I thought it would be more structured in terms of how much time I spent on different things, but it isn’t – and I thrive in that. I spend most of my time on the EA role, which is my primary role. Some weeks I am almost exclusively an EA, and other weeks P&C takes up a lot of time.
Nobly is a company that moves fast. That requires an adaptable management team, which means lots of EA tasks come up that couldn’t be predicted the week before.
The tasks I have on a regular basis include preparing and following up on various meetings, including presentations, email and calendar management, putting together monthly board reports and internal communication. On top of that, we have many strategic ambitions where I am involved before, during and after.
The P&C tasks depend a lot on the period. We try to spar with each other on as many things as possible, so that you are never “left” on your own. We also have a system where we share tasks along the way and a weekly check-in where we go through what is on our plate.
There is no standard for how to be the best possible EA – it is individual based on who you work for. As an EA, a lot of it is about adapting to whoever you are assisting. For both me and Morten, it has been important to establish trust and align expectations along the way, so the collaboration works for both parties. But there is no “one size fits all” in this role – it depends on individual needs and not least on the company’s values and way of working.
I knew from my very first day in the job that I wanted to find someone to spar with. I learn a lot from working closely with both management and the board, who are all people with many years of experience, but it is clear that you can miss having someone to spar with when it comes to actually doing the job itself.
That is why I was particularly happy when I got the chance to join the network CIRCL, which is a network for EAs. We meet 4-6 times a year, and together we plan which topics will be interesting to discuss.
A colleague sent me a LinkedIn post about two women who had started a network for EAs, because it was a need they felt in the role themselves. I didn’t hesitate at all, and sent off an application right away, just a few months after starting at Nobly.
There is a new focus each time, where we talk about some of the different challenges we experience in our role. For example facilitating meetings, communication tools, and what it means to be a strategic EA. Before each meeting we are asked to reflect on different aspects of the job, and I think that’s a really healthy thing to set aside time for.
Sparring with others in the same role as me means I get input and reflection that I wouldn’t be able to get inside Nobly in the same way. Personally it gives me a community I’ve become very fond of. Even though the network isn’t the same as a team, it’s nice that there are people who know the tasks and challenges I face.
