"Employees want to be seen, heard, and acknowledged."
Angel Assistance Group, LLC, is a niche consulting agency providing consulting services for businesses in the areas of administration, DEI, recruiting, and coaching. We also offer remote fractional Chief of Staff support, as well as training, mentorship, and development of administrative staff for businesses and individuals.
NicAnne Lamoureux, CSA, MBA, is the founder and CEO of Angel Assistance Group. She is a seasoned business professional with 3 decades of experience in team building, leadership, and partnering with leadership teams and CxO executives around the globe.
She began her career as a receptionist in a small rural real estate office in New Zealand, then took her career to new heights by relocating to Sydney, Australia, in 1997 to become the Executive Assistant to the CEO and Administrative Manager overseeing a team of 10 administrative staff and has progressively grown her career to become a Chief of Staff to C-level executives.
NicAnne has lived in five countries, landing in the U.S. in 2005 and becoming a U.S. citizen in 2015. NicAnne has worked for global powerhouse companies, including Novartis, Philips Electronics, Bridgewater Associates, and American Express, as well as scrappy startups such as Andela and Clearco.
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Table of Contents
If you were in an elevator with Warren Buffet, how would you describe your company, your services or products? What makes your company different from others? What is your company’s biggest strength?
NicAnne Lamoureux: A flood of Virtual Assistant services is available, heightened by the need for support during the COVID pandemic, but Angel Assistance Group is not a VA company.
We offer fractional Chief of Staff support, helping predominantly small or startup companies that need strategic and operational support without the massive overhead of hiring a full-time employee.
This is not personal or executive assistant support – it is high-level executive support focused on helping CEOs and Founders grow their businesses with efficient planning, processes, and hiring.
Quiet quitting, The Great Resignation, are an ongoing trend causing many businesses to struggle keeping talent engaged and motivated. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued and misunderstood in the workplace. In your experience, what keeps employees happy? And how are adapting to the current shift we see?
NicAnne Lamoureux: Employees want to be seen, heard, and acknowledged. Ensuring that your employees feel valued is essential to their engagement and motivation. Additionally, we put actions behind our words.
We ask clients to sign an inclusion pledge and will not work with them unless their ethics and values align with ours. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are vital parts of moving society toward a genuinely fair and equal playing field, and we do our part to make sure that we do not support clients who perpetuate exclusionary practices.
This commitment through action is another reason our employees want to be a part of the Angel Assistance Group journey.
Online business keeps on surging higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for the year to come and how are you capitalizing on the tidal wave?
NicAnne Lamoureux: Angel Assistance Group is entirely remote. Our team and advisors are spread across the U.S. and the globe. One of our advisors is currently in my homeland (New Zealand). I don’t think we even have two people in the same state within the U.S., so utilizing Async tools and video conferencing is essential for us to collaborate with each other and our clients.
This wave of working remotely offers a new platform for disabled folx who otherwise may be precluded from working. I am disabled and cannot always get myself around the house, let alone make a 45-minute commute to an office, so being able to work remotely and run my business from anywhere allows me to tap into a market that was previously inaccessible due to the ableist environment in which many companies still operate.
Christopher Hitchens, an American journalist, is quoted as saying that “everyone has a book in them” Have you written a book? If so, please share with us details about it. If you haven’t, what book would you like to write and how would you like it to benefit the readers?
NicAnne Lamoureux: I have started writing a book, but I have now put it aside while focusing on other endeavors. People throughout my life have told me that I should write a book and tell my story. I have had a difficult life, fought against much adversity, and clawed my way from below the poverty line to the middle class (some would say, lower-upper class).
Not to ruin the big reveal of my book, but I was once told that I have been a victim of eight of the top 10 violent crimes in New Zealand, so as you would imagine, I have a lot of stories to tell.
In your experience, what tends to be the most underestimated part of running a company? Can you share an example?
NicAnne Lamoureux: Operations are my most significant pain point regarding the time it absorbs from my day, which I had completely underestimated. I was not prepared for the amount of time it would take to choose and set up a CRM system, build my website, track hours with clients, monthly billing, tax returns, and so on.
The other thing I would say is that college doesn’t teach sales. I have no idea how to sell, so I outsource that to a professional who can sell me and line up clients ready for me to hit the home run. Having a professional sales consultant allows me to play sales pickleball instead of major league baseball.
What does “success” in the year to come mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
NicAnne Lamoureux: Success to me is always personal, and 2023 is a massive year of growth and change for me. I will complete my BS and MBA studies, giving me so much free time that I may have to start my Doctorate to fill the gap.
I have been providing fractional Chief of Staff support to founders since 2020 but did not register the business as a legal entity until January 2023, so we have been having fun hiring and creating SWAG while also handling the serious sides of running a business.
I was also accepted as a Member of The Chief of Staff Association in January and was accepted to attend their Certified Chief of Staff program at the University of Oxford in May, so I am very excited and honored to be able to participate in that.
On top of that, we just completed a full interior renovation of our 1883 house, which we unexpectedly have now decided to sell so that we can relocate to support my husband’s career growth, so moving to a new state is on the agenda for later this year.
This year will be huge for us, and successfully getting through it with sanity and marriage intact will be my measure of success.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank NicAnne Lamoureux for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with NicAnne Lamoureux or her company, you can do it through her – Linkedin Page
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