Gina Cotner Email & Phone Number

United States

As you can see below, I was an EA for a CEO of a small firm. At the end of that chapter of my life, I went to be with my father for the last six weeks of his life. After my father’s passing in 2015, I went home and floated through life for a few months until I felt ready to work again. I rustled the bushes of my community looking for a good opportunity. One day my friend Tiffany mentioned her boss could really use me as an EA. She made the introduction, and I became the EA for that CEO. I went to his office once a week to open mail and organize things, but other than that I managed many aspects of his life remotely from my home office. A few months later Tiffany said to me,” I am going to need some EA support next quarter. Could you plan ahead for that?” I told her I didn’t have the bandwidth, so she asked me to find her someone, “just like me.” Tiffany was a friend, and we had many of the same acquaintances. We put our heads together and thought of our mutual friend Dorian. We knew we would love working with her, so we recruited her, and I was asked to be Dorian’s "EA Coach". I told Tiffany that if we did this we could not screw this up! “We can’t mess with Dorian’s life if she leaves a job and decides to come work with us.” Soon, Dorian joined me in providing EA services for this company. They paid me a small amount for each hour she worked as I coached her in becoming a high performing EA. A few months later Tiffany asked me to find another EA for other Executives at the company. This was starting to look like a business to me, but I was very reluctant to become an entrepreneur again. Tiffany gently pushed, and I rolled with it! I found an old friend of mine, Alison who was working as an EA in an office. She had a young son and wanted to be home more with him. Soon, she shifted gears and started working with us too. In April of 2016 Athena Executive Services was born. I put Dorian and Alison on payroll, and off we went. And grew, and grew, and grew!

I started as a Level 1 Course Supervisor and moved to Level 4 in four years. I was the Local Coordinator (City Coach) for the Course Supervisors throughout the Pacific Northwest, and went on to be the person who championed and managed the 30 - 40 other local coordinators around the world . . . people who were leading and managing the course supervisors in their region . . . from Mumbai to London, from Cape Town to Chicago, from Toronto to Perth, all around the world. I went on to be a member of the Performance Team, the head of the Performance Team, then on to the Designation Team and ultimately an Advisory Board member when the Academy replaced the Assisting program in 2022. In 2023 I retired after 25 years of Assisting. I founded Athena Executive Services as a place where people in business could receive the benefit of having a high level course supervisor on their team. In the marketplace, I call this a high caliber EA!

Seattle-Redmond

Seattle, Wa

B.S., Human Resources & Public Relations

Activities and Societies: President, Pi Beta Phi

Education record