Executives Lose a Coveted Status Symbol---Their Assistants

Valerie Balensiefen remembers the directive she got from a former boss on her first day as his executive assistant in 2019: She’d been hired to support him, and him alone. If others tried to steal her time, she was to tell them to fend for themselves. 

A couple of years later, she says, the technology company where she worked in the Dallas area assigned her a second executive. In January, her position was eliminated. She started a new job last week as an EA to five leaders of a different company.