Discernment Over Proximity: Shireen Dreyer on Redefining the Executive Assistant Role

In conversations about executive support, proximity to power is often mistaken for influence. For Shireen Dreyer, the opposite is true. Influence, she argues, is built not on access, but on discernment, the disciplined judgement that shapes decisions long before they are formally made. With experience spanning South Africa, Australia, and globally governed institutions, Shireen has built her career through deliberate capability-building rather than personal branding. From ballet to banking, legal-adjacent work to executive operations, her path reflects integration, understanding how systems connect, how credibility compounds, and how business truly functions. In this interview, she reframes the Executive Assistant role as one grounded in business literacy, structural thinking, and clarity. It is not about standing next to power. It is about quietly shaping outcomes through disciplined discernment.

Shireen Dreyer | Executive Assistant | South Africa | LinkedIn

Driven less by goals than by resolution, her attention settles on what remains unresolved: lingering ambiguity, near-working systems, conversations that never quite close. Shireen is drawn to drift, fragmentation, and incompleteness because my project-minded thinking is compelled to carry things through to resolution. Her affinity for ballet and classical music lies in their disciplined structures, where timing, restraint, and repetition create freedom. Similarly, she is drawn to clarity that deepens understanding, growth that integrates learning, and progress that honours the journey as much as the result. In a nutshell, Shireen is resolution-driven, project-minded, structure-adjacent, multi-potentialite committed to enjoying the journey.

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Elizabeth Sutkowska: Shireen, you’ve built a career supporting C-Suite leaders, boards, and UHNWIs across different countries, cultures, and industries. When you look back to your early days, how did you first step into the Executive Assistant role, and what has kept you choosing this profession as your work has grown more complex and influential?

Shireen Dreyer: I moved into administration as a pragmatic lateral shift. As a ballet teacher with increasing financial needs, the administration offered a way into the corporate world without formal education. I made a conscious decision to build a capability that made me easier to place and harder to dismiss through deliberate skill-stacking.

Alongside that, I was intentional about where I worked. I aligned myself with organisations that already carried strong reputations, understanding that credibility compounds. That approach allowed me to move from smaller environments into more regulated and demanding ones, including banking, where authority, trust, and institutional credibility matter.

From there, my path was shaped less by career ambition and more by curiosity. I was open to moving laterally within organisations and across functions because I had built the foundation to do so. Over time, the work became more complex, closer to decision-making, and more exposed to leadership.

In South Africa, the title “secretary” remained in use well into the 2010s. It was only when I moved to Australia that the work I had already been doing was formally recognised as Executive Assistant work. The title changed, but more importantly, the expectations and clarity around the role changed. My progression was driven by labour market mechanics, recruiter mediation, and title lag rather than personal branding or aspiration.

I continue choosing the EA role because it feeds my curiosity, allows me to use a wide range of capabilities, and places me at the centre of the work with a high degree of agency. It remains intellectually engaging, structurally interesting, and close enough to decision-making to matter without requiring ownership of power itself.

Elizabeth: Your work sits at the intersection of judgment, structure, and decision-making, far beyond traditional administrative definitions. What is one truth about the Executive Assistant role that you wish was better understood, especially by those entering the profession or working alongside it?

Shireen: The one truth I wish was better understood about the Executive Assistant role is that it is fundamentally about discernment. Discernment is the ability to distinguish what genuinely matters from what is merely loud or urgent. It shows up in how information is filtered, priorities are sequenced, issues are escalated, absorbed, or deliberately left untouched. These choices are rarely visible, yet they shape outcomes long before any formal decision is made.

This is why proximity to power is often misunderstood. Too much emphasis is placed on who an EA works for, rather than how they work. Influence is not inherited through access. It is built through discernment, trust, credibility, and an understanding of how the organisation actually functions. In practice, effectiveness comes from relationships cultivated across the business, not from title adjacency.

For those entering the field, the shift is this: stop chasing proximity and start developing discernment. Build relational range and learn how power really operates, without confusing it with identity or self-worth.

Elizabeth: Your background spans dance, law, project management, and executive operations, an unusually rich mix of disciplines. Looking across all of that experience, what would you say has become your personal “signature” as an Executive Assistant, the superpower you’ve developed that consistently creates value for leaders and organizations?

Shireen: I don’t think in terms of superpowers. I think that framing is reductive, since it implies something innate or accidental. In a work context, capability is developed, not bestowed.

What I’ve built over time is range and integration. My background spans dance, law-adjacent work, finance, project management, and executive operations. Each discipline contributes something distinct: discipline and timing from dance, attention to consequence and interpretation from legal work, financial literacy around risk, trade-offs and value, sequencing and control from project management, and judgement under real pressure from executive operations. None of these sit in isolation. They inform how I think and how I problem-solve. Through deliberate upskilling, I’ve developed a solid understanding of how different parts of a business work together. That understanding enables me to communicate issues with depth, surface gaps early, and reduce siloed thinking through disciplined problem-solving.

If I had to name anything, it’s that through continuous self-improvement, I can support leaders in the language of the business, with clarity and confidence, while remaining clear on my role.

Elizabeth: You’ve worked both in South Africa and in global environments, often navigating complex, high-stakes systems. How has working in South Africa shaped the way you approach resilience, ethics, and executive partnership, and how does that context differ from what you’ve seen elsewhere?

Shireen: I’ve been fortunate to work in South Africa, the US, and Australia. What differs most across these contexts is not the business itself, but the people. Business fundamentals are remarkably consistent globally; it’s the individuals and cultural norms that shape how those fundamentals are expressed and navigated.

Although most of my work experience has been based in South Africa, the organisations I’ve supported have had a global reach. As a result, the standards I’ve worked to have consistently aligned with international expectations around governance, ethics, and performance. That exposure has made stepping into roles in international markets far more seamless.

In practice, governance frameworks and ethical principles are shaped by the same institutions worldwide. What changes is how those principles are interpreted and lived day to day. This is where context matters most.

Executive partnership, in particular, is highly individual. It’s not defined by geography, but by understanding the person you are supporting. Effective partnership comes from reading decision-making styles, pressures, and values, and adapting accordingly within a shared professional framework.

Elizabeth: You’re well-connected and closely observe how the Executive Assistant profession is evolving. From your perspective, how is the EA community in South Africa changing, in terms of expectations, confidence, and business impact, and what advice would you offer to EAs there who want to grow, be taken seriously, and shape the future of the profession?

Shireen: I don’t claim to speak for the South African EA community, but the patterns I observe locally mirror those playing out globally. The conversations around titles, proximity to power, confidence, and pay are not uniquely South African. They are the same unresolved debates circulating internationally, particularly online.

In terms of expectations, the role is becoming more gated. Formal education, recognised credentials, and demonstrable business literacy are increasingly baseline requirements. This shift reflects how organisations establish credibility and make defensible decisions. South Africa is aligned with this global trend rather than operating outside of it.

On confidence, I’m careful not to generalise. Confidence is personal and shaped more by clarity than affirmation.

Regarding business impact, I no longer operate within South African organisations directly, so I won’t speculate. However, if the conversations around scope, authority, and compensation mirror those abroad, it follows that the business impact of the role is shaped by global organisational design rather than local anomaly.

My advice to EAs who want to grow and shape the future of the profession is to focus on business literacy and portability. Understand how organisations establish credibility, manage exposure, and assign value. Build skills that travel across contexts and borders. Coaching and professional bodies can support development, but their credentials are not globally standardised. That reality is better understood early than discovered late.

Thank You!

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