Why I’ve Stopped Calling Myself a Virtual Assistant

I've been introducing myself wrong

Someone asked me recently what I do, and I did the thing I always do, which is say "I'm a VA" and then spend the next two minutes explaining everything that sentence doesn't cover. I've decided that's the last time I do that.

The label came first, the confidence came later

When I started this business, "Virtual Assistant" was the easiest thing to say. It's a word people already understand, so nobody had to ask a follow-up question, and I could hand someone that label and move straight on with the conversation. The trouble is, it was never really true, and not because I thought the work was beneath me. I've done my fair share of inbox admin and diary shuffling, and I'm not precious about those types of tasks. It was untrue because it was never the whole picture. From the very start, clients weren't really handing me task lists, they were handing me problems: a launch that needed coordinating, a team that needed structure, a founder who needed someone to catch what they were about to drop.

Looking back, the signs were there all along. One client originally hired me "to do a bit of admin." Within a month, I'd rebuilt their onboarding process, introduced systems across the business and become the person they bounced major operational decisions off.

Another came to me for what was meant to be a one-off CRM data cleansing project. Today, I'm fully integrated into their business, leading community engagement, supporting business development, coordinating their weekly podcast and helping keep the whole operation moving.

The work had quietly evolved, but the label hadn't. I just didn't have the confidence, or the language, to say that out loud yet.

What was actually happening underneath

Long before Not Just a VA existed, I was already the person who made things happen behind the scenes.

Earlier in my career, I managed large front-of-house teams where keeping dozens of moving parts running smoothly was simply part of the job. Later, in my recruitment career, I learnt what it meant to operate at pace, building relationships, generating close to half a million pounds in annual revenue each year, and becoming the person candidates and clients trusted with conversations that often had very little to do with the job itself. Half recruiter, half sounding board (some even used to call me their unofficial therapist!).

I was working closely alongside business owners, seeing first-hand what it really takes to build and grow a company. I wasn't just completing my own work, I was watching decisions being made, solving problems before they became bigger ones, and learning how successful businesses actually operate from the inside.

Over the years I've worked across multiple industries, built businesses of my own, and eventually moved to Dubai to start a new chapter. On paper, those experiences look quite different. In reality, they've all been teaching me the same thing: how to bring order to complexity, how to earn trust quickly, and how to become the person people rely on when there's more going on than anyone else can comfortably hold. That's the thread that has run through every version of my career, and it's still here now. So when clients started treating me less like someone to delegate to and more like someone to think alongside, that wasn't a departure from who I'd always been. It was just the first time the work finally matched it.

The name was never really the problem

Here's the thing I've had to be honest with myself about: my business is still called Not Just a VA, and I've written a whole blog post about no longer identifying as one. On the surface, that looks like a contradiction, but it isn't, and it's actually the whole point. I'm not JUST a VA.

I don't need the perfect word to stop using the wrong title

I still don't have a nice job title for myself, or a quick and straightforward answer for when people at networking events say "oh so what do you do?" Some people call it a Fractional Operations Manager, others call it a Founder's Associate, and most days I just call it being someone's right hand woman. None of those phrases are perfect, but I've stopped waiting for one to be. Virtual Assistant was never really accurate, and I was only ever using it because it was easy to say, not because it was true. I'm not trying to replace it with an equally tidy label or title. I'm just done using a word that undersells what I actually do for the people I work with.

So next time someone asks me what I do, I won't tell them I'm a VA and spend two minutes explaining why that isn't quite true. I'll simply tell them I help founders build calmer, better-run businesses!