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Skills that raise your pay

• Complex travel and calendars

  Juggling time zones, visas and last-minute changes for several people at once is the skill that separates the pay bands.

• Board work

  Preparing board packets and taking formal minutes. Specialized, well paid and hard to hire for.

• Budgets and expenses

  Owning a departmental budget moves you from assistant toward operations.

• Project management

  Running the office move, the offsite, the new system rollout. The usual route to a chief of staff title.

• Absolute discretion

  You will know about layoffs, deals and illnesses before anyone. It is the core requirement of the job, not a bonus.