Webinar | Managing Up: The Unfiltered Guide for EAs, Chiefs of Staff, and People Leaders
Managing Up: The Unfiltered Guide for EAs, Chiefs of Staff, and People Leaders
Date: Wednesday, August 26, 2026
Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM ET
About this virtual event
Most people in supporting roles are great at getting things done. The harder part is getting the people above them to actually listen.
Managing up isn't about politics. It's about knowing how to communicate with your executive in a way that moves things forward, protects your time, and builds the kind of trust that makes your job easier and theirs too.
Some EAs and Chiefs of Staff figure this out through trial and error. Others never quite crack it. The difference usually comes down to a handful of habits and mindset shifts that nobody teaches you in the job description.
Our panelists:
Annie Croner
Founder & CEO at Whole Assistant
Annie is the founder and CEO of Whole Assistant, an online platform, community, and coaching practice built to help assistants transform their careers without burning out. A career EA with over 20 years supporting executives across accounting, marketing, nonprofit, and private wealth management, Annie is now a sought-after executive assistant coach, trainer, and speaker. Her own experience with burnout led her to build a practice focused on the things nobody teaches assistants: boundaries, confidence, advocating for yourself, and detaching your worth from your work. It's exactly the territory this conversation will cover.
Jeremy Burrows
Sr. Executive Assistant to the CEO at Capacity
Jeremy is the Senior Executive Assistant to the CEO at Capacity, an AI-powered support automation platform, and one of the most recognized voices in the assistant profession. He's the author of The Leader Assistant: Four Pillars of a Confident, Game-Changing Assistant and host of The Leader Assistant Podcast, where he's interviewed hundreds of top assistants and executives across more than 350 episodes. Through his coaching, community, and speaking work, Jeremy has helped executives and assistants around the world build partnerships that actually work. He's seen firsthand what separates assistants who lead from assistants who just execute.
Melanie Naranjo
Chief People Officer at Ethena
Melanie is the Chief People Officer at Ethena, the compliance training platform known for making workplace training people actually want to take. A former EA turned executive, she has spent her career on both sides of the managing up equation, first supporting senior leaders and now being the one supported. Before Ethena, she spent six years at Insider Inc., rising to VP of People & Culture, and she has built an audience of more than 60,000 HR professionals on LinkedIn with her candid, business-forward takes on people leadership. She knows exactly what separates the supporting-role professionals who earn a seat at the table from the ones who stay stuck, and that's the territory she'll bring to this conversation.
Chrissy Arias
Founder, Office of the EA
Chrissy is the founder of Office of the EA and a trusted voice for EAs and Chiefs of Staff navigating AI, known for delivering the unfiltered truth about the job (no sugarcoating), said the way most people are too scared to (all in good fun). She spent 16 years as an EA and executive business partner across every stage of a company, from a 25-person startup to a 13,000-plus person global enterprise. Alongside her weekly Operating System newsletter, she's built free community tools including a restaurant map curated by EAs and an offsite location finder powered by Offsite, and hosts free AI workshops fully curated for EAs and Chiefs of Staff.
In this live session, we'll get into what it actually looks like to manage up with confidence, not just survive the relationship.
Here's what we'll cover:
What managing up actually means and why most people in supporting roles get it wrong
How to communicate with your executive in a way that builds trust instead of creating more back and forth
The boundaries and systems that make high-performing EA and CoS relationships work
How to advocate for yourself, your team, and your ideas without overstepping
It's a candid conversation with someone who has coached hundreds of assistants and executives on what makes these relationships actually work.
If you're an EA, Chief of Staff, People Leader, or anyone who spends a lot of time supporting senior leadership, this one is for you.
Offsite works with People and Operations teams to plan the moments that matter most. This is one conversation we didn't want to miss.
Save your spot now!