How One BlackRock Administrative Professional Is Working to Elevate the Role of APs Everywhere

Despite what you may have heard, a career as an administrative professional (AP) is not a “lazy girl job,” as it was deemed in a recent viral TikTok. “Despite the role evolving over the past decade”, elaborates Simone White, Administrative Business Lead at BlackRock, “it still tends to come with a presumption that it sits alongside a business, rather than being an integral element of it. There’s a misconception that it requires little or no skill and that those who choose the role are doing so because they have little ambition or are not capable of doing anything else.” However, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

“My role as an AP takes a mix of analytical thinking, creative problem-solving, and resilience to tackle my day-to-day,” White explains. And, as White has found during her over 17 years at BlackRock, her administrative professional role has continued to expand with changing business environments, requiring her to take on increasing amounts of responsibility and accountability.

As her role has evolved, White has been empowered by leaders at the firm to lead innovative work — including outside of her regular role, like founding the Global Administrative Initiative Network (GAIN) in 2018. White created GAIN to benefit APs across the company, who were relatively isolated before the formation of this group. “GAIN became that link between the business and our community, providing operational oversight and advocacy so our collective voices are heard,” White tells us. The creation of GAIN was championed by business leaders who saw the value in employee-led professional networks.

Today, White acts as the Global Chair of GAIN, which is still operating under its founding mission to engage, foster, and enhance the talent of APs by providing tailored resources, development, and education. And APs aren’t the only people who benefit from this group!

“Our strapline for the GAIN network is ‘We All GAIN,’” reveals White. “The network benefits every employee across BlackRock.” By elevating APs and their imperative work as culture carriers, upholders of operational policies, risk managers, and more, GAIN can amplify the unique and valued expertise of its members.

We chatted with White to learn more about everything from her career journey as an AP to the inner workings of GAIN. Here’s what she had to say…

Let’s start by discussing your work as an experienced administrative professional. What advice would you give to someone starting in this field? How can they develop their own dynamic careers?  

No matter your role in a company, it can be easy to get discouraged when you’re not provided with the same opportunities or your input is not valued in the same way as other colleagues. It is important when choosing this as a career you understand both the history of the role and what the role should look like today, so that you’re equipped to deal with any challenges.

I would encourage anyone starting in this field to surround themselves with positive role models, stakeholders and sponsors who understand the pivotal role APs play. They can provide you with valuable insight into the role, support your growth and development, and open doors.  

It’s also important to remain curious, adaptable, and willing to learn new ways of doing things. Though some core elements of my role over the past 25 years have remained the same, the way I carry them out has changed. Today, my role involves demonstrating the skills that will most effectively enable me to manage my executives’ and teams’ most precious asset — their time — all while keeping up to date with changing priorities, technologies, and environments.

How can we better advance and support administrative professionals?

For so many APs across the globe, their careers have been limited, because the profession is viewed and treated as a resource, rather than as talented individuals in need of nurturing and opportunities for growth. APs need to use their voices collectively to make an impact — with active support from colleagues and leaders to drive change. Given that our demographic is majority women, the important role senior women within organizations can play is powerful. The way they work with their APs, the language they use when describing them, and the visibility and accountability they give them can help to change outdated attitudes and empower all women. 

So many APs have risen to executive leadership positions in their fields: Patricia Dunn, CEO of BGI; Colleen Barrett, first female CEO of Southwest Airlines; Ursula Burns, the first Black female CEO of Xerox; Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett-Packard and US presidential candidate — and let’s not forget our male APs, like Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon. If we’re not viewing our APs as talent, we could be holding back some of the world’s next leaders.

GAIN is one of the ways administrative professionals are supported at BlackRock. From your experience founding and leading this group, do you have any advice for other women who may want to start their own employee-led network at work?   

I have a lot! But I focus on five main areas:

1. Explore and know your “why.”

2. Have company buy-in and support.

3. Create a structured steering/operating committee.

4. Seek out executive sponsorship.

5. Build up peer participation and support.

GAIN recently launched an AP Career Framework at BlackRock. What does this entail?

BlackRock made a big commitment by launching the AP Career Framework, a global initiative pioneered by GAIN.  This was what we call a “true One BlackRock effort:” GAIN played a key role in advocating for and developing the framework, and BlackRock leadership drove its implementation – ensuring it was integrated into the firm, creating transformational change and inclusion for professionals whose roles were previously defined only by those they supported.

The framework provides clarity for expectations in both skill and behavior, as well as a transparent career path for APs, enabling them to have greater ownership over their careers. It supports consistency across talent practices from recruiting to performance management, along with clear paths to promotion within administration and fair internal mobility criteria for those who may want to move to other types of roles or businesses within the firm.

The framework replaced traditional administrative titles of ‘Executive Assistant’ and ‘Administrative Assistant,’ which historically were related to the person the AP supported rather than to the employee’s own competencies.

The three new titles — Administrative Business Coordinator, Administrative Business Partner, and Administrative Business Lead — put an individual’s competencies and breadth of responsibilities, as well as the business, at the heart of the title. 

How do you see the AP Career Framework evolving in the future?

The framework is a starting point of inclusion — not the end. It provides a more transparent, consistent, and fair process for us to manage our careers and raises awareness of what we are accountable for. The framework's titles indicate that administrative professionals have different levels of skill and competency. The competency structures serve as an education tool for managers, talent teams, and the wider firm to understand the specializations that sit within this group and to view APs in the same way they view those who may be specialists in other business support functions.

APs deserve the same career and development opportunities as all other employees in organizations, as this creates a truly inclusive environment. Their growth should not be hindered by the pretext that ‘someone has to do their duties'. All employees have tasks and responsibilities, but their growth is not confined by the task — they are developed to handle bigger scopes and advance on their own career paths. When they grow and excel, another comes in to take on the tasks and start their career journey — and so it continues. 

I want to see this expand beyond BlackRock because this is an issue that impacts the profession well outside of the finance industry. All organizations need to look at the inclusion of their administrative population and honestly reflect on whether they are viewing them as talent or a simple resource.