How Panda International COO refocused her priorities with a Headroom Assistant

The Challenge:

Daisy Tazelaar co-founded Panda International, a successful and fast-growing life science recruitment company. Since day 1, she’s very involved in the operational side of the business and is the face of the company with clients and stakeholders. This means she gets lots and lots of emails, automatic notifications and updates every day.

After her maternity leave, Daisy had over 15,000 emails sitting in her inbox and needed to sort them out as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, she had ambitious plans to expand the business to two new European markets. And all of this while keeping a good work-life balance to be with her newborn.

Until then, Daisy used 20+ folders in her inbox to try and categorize all incoming emails. But that failed to give her a simple, actionable overview.

So, how to find a better way to manage her inbox and time, while staying involved with the day-to-day of the company?

How we helped Daisy focus on the important stuff, not the fluff

After our Deep dive between Daisy and her primary Headroom EA, we understood that the keywords here were prioritization and time management. So that’s what we focused on.

First of all, her EA mapped all the types of emails Daisy received – from customers’ emails to board members’, newsletter and event invites, partnership and media coverage requests, team performance updates etc.

Then, we took away all the unnecessary folders from her inbox and reduced the number of automatic emails she was receiving.

On the long term, it was also very important for us to help Daisy let go of the urgency to do it all by herself. As a company leader, she needed time to focus on vision and leadership and delegate the rest.

That’s why every few months her Headroom EA sits down to discuss how to work together more efficiently and doesn’t shy away from asking the tough questions: “do you really need to attend this meeting? Is this a real priority for you this week?”.

Taking time-management to the next level

After creating a better process and structure to Daisy’s inbox management, Headroom EAs shifted the focus to how to manage her time the best way possible, starting from her personal life.

During that period, Daisy was planning to move house and was exploring a few important purchases. We took charge and arranged for a smooth relocation, while handling all touchpoints with premium car dealers and other service providers.

On top of this, we took over many other company-level tasks:

• Organizing trips and dinners to special locations for the team when they hit company targets
• Planning and organizing holidays and personal commitments
• Making sure Daisy’s time isn’t spent on unnecessary meetings and guarding her calendar
• Organizing board meetings, from setting up date and agenda to note taking and follow-ups

Overall, anything that you can do for an executive, we do it for Daisy.

The results: simpler workflow, better focus

Together, we created a successful and simplified workflow for her inbox, calendar and to do list. This way, Daisy stays on top of everything that happens across Panda International without having to be looped into every single email and meeting. Her success speaks for herself, as the company is now fully operational in two new European markets.

But the ultimate achievement for us is guarding Daisy’s calendar so she always has enough time to spend with her baby.

We’re still working side-by-side with Daisy Tazelaar and other C-suite at her company to improve processes and keep giving them time back. That’s because we like to be proactive and believe there are always more possibilities we can unlock together.