Didsbury Life Virtual Assistant Service

Meet The Virtual Team

SARAH RUGG : VA CO-ORDINATOR

Sarah is highly organised and self-motivated; she enjoys interacting with people. Her experience and diverse skill set have been acquired through an 18 year comprehensive background in the banking and finance industry.

As a project manager, Sarah was instrumental in the successful implementation of a multi-million pound four year project to replace all of MBNA Europe’s internal systems. Sarah learnt the new systems inside out, carried out impact analysis, created hybrid processes, assisted with new functionality design and amongst other things managed a team of people who tested the new systems. Sarah has also been heavily involved in a number of portfolio acquisitions for MBNA.

Prior to this Sarah was responsible for selling MBNA Europe’s bad debt; a process she developed from scratch. This included screening potential debt purchasers; managing the portfolio analysis; negotiating multi-million pound contracts and managing the ongoing relationships with debt purchasers. Whilst in this role, Sarah also set up an in-house debt collection company for MBNA.

As Customer Satisfaction Manager for 2 years, Sarah managed a call centre team responsible for dealing with customer queries and complaints. In this role, Sarah was also given responsibility for recruitment and management of a large number of temporary staff and budget management.

During her time in the Marketing department at MBNA, Sarah was responsible for proposing concepts to design companies, proof reading, approving final mailing designs and print runs, tracking response rates to mailings and analysing the results.

Earlier in her career at MBNA, Sarah worked in the Collections department where she was responsible for collecting credit card arrears, managing relationships with debt collection agents and solicitors, and selecting a new debt recovery system.

For 4 years, Sarah worked at Marks and Spencer Financial Services where she was a PA. As well as the usual PA functions, Sarah was also responsible for work flow management, some customer queries and providing administrative support to the legal department.

Sarah is highly competent in the use of MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Project and Publisher. She is currently enhancing her skills on MS Access. Sarah enjoys carrying out work for clients and the high quality of the work she produces is partly due to her excellent attention to detail.

LISA : DATABASE EXPERT

Lisa has over 10 years experience in Administrative, Analytical and Managerial positions in Pharmaceutical and Financial companies and she thrives on developing innovative and creative solutions. Project Management experience enables her to excel in planning, forecasting, setting objectives and determining courses of action. Using her extensive knowledge of Access, Excel and Word, Lisa has the natural ability to skillfully transfer manual functions to computerised systems. Lisa inspires others to do better and has delivered numerous training sessions on MS Office applications sharing her extensive knowledge with others.

Lisa has built a large number of databases within MS Access, to centralise data and automate departmental functions. She has created numerous time-saving spreadsheets by compiling formulas to automate calculations wherever possible.

She has created a range of professional PowerPoint presentations, making full use of all animation techniques available.

Lisa has also created several training manuals within Word, extensively explaining processes to users, enabling them to complete the functions with little or no assistance.

ALLISON : HR EXPERT

Allison is a seasoned professional with over 10 years experience in a wide range of Human Resources functions. Following her graduation in psychology, Allison worked for MBNA for eleven years. Four of t hese years were spent in the field of recruitment , carrying out competency-based interviewing techniques and selection criteria, for all levels up to senior management. Her confident approach, and background in psychology, means that Allison sources ideal candidates.

During her time at MBNA, Allison's range of projects also included grievance and disciplinary procedures, employment law, performance appraisal and motivational techniques.

COLETTE : TEXT & COPY EXPERT

Colette has loved words from a young age. In fact, since she was first able to talk she has made good use of both the spoken and written language!

Deciding to put this passion to good use she gained a degree in English Literature and Music from the Manchester Metropolitan University. Wanting to widen her experience she spent the next few years writing for pleasure (as well as acting in numerous plays and musicals with local operatic and dramatic societies) until she decided to try and make a career of writing becoming a freelance writer, willing to try her hand at anything! She has had various articles published online as well as having written for a regional newspaper. Colette is a regular contributor to Didsbury Life, having profiled a number of the business partners.

In addition to this Colette is an experienced senior administrator honing her administrative skills at various companies but mainly in the Social Services Department of a Local Authority. Her experience includes organising meetings, writing reports, keeping records, liaising with other professionals and clients and diary management.

CLARE : BUSINESS TRAVEL EXPERT

Having been in the travel industry for nearly 20 years, and specialising in business travel, corporate events, groups and conferences for the majority of that time, Clare has vast experience and knowledge of the industry. Business travel is a very specialised branch of the travel industry, requiring expert knowledge in this field.

Clare has had sole responsibility for the organisation of business travel, group travel and conferences to give the business traveller the best possible service along with the most competitive air fares which can be sourced. Clare has also had experience of negotiating air fares and fantastic hotel rates.

Clare also has experience of the organisation of the travel element of events coming in at the planning stage so that the budgets can be correctly presented and agreed, and the choice of hotel approved. She has offered the full range of event management to ensure all the travel and event logistics work out as planned.

ROB : STRATEGIES EXPERT

Rob's qualifications include Intermediate and Advanced GNVQ Business Studies and A Level Geography, which he passed with distinction.

Rob worked at a large financial organisation for nine years, initially in the Call Centre, dealing with a wide range of customers. He was subsequently involved in two major long-term projects to replace all computer systems. These projects required process mapping, involvement with system design, testing of the new systems, successful implementation and post-implementation testing of systems and procedures.

Working on Strategies for both Business Development and Debt Collection, Rob has been a key analyst in a high performing strategy team supporting change, the redesign of service delivery and driving new process efficiencies. He was responsible for the development and ongoing delivery of monthly tactical contact strategies including direct mail, statement inserts, SMS and email.

CAROLINE : PROOF READING EXPERT

Caroline has a BA Honours Degree in Combined Arts and in 1998 was awarded the Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA) from Westminster College. Between 1993-1997, Caroline taught English in Hong Kong, honing her skills in the field of proof reading. She has subsequently taught English to speakers of other languages.

Caroline is extremely fastidious in the checking of the written word. She has superb attention to detail and her linguistic background enables her to proof read with speed and real accuracy.

EMMA : ORGANISATIONAL EXPERT

Emma holds a First Class Honours Degree in Business Economics. After her degree, she lived in France for 12 months, acquiring a sound command of the French language.

Professionally, she has been responsible for the management of a large European hospital database for a Healthcare Database Company, and has been involved in the organisation and dissemination of market research projects and surveys. Emma has worked also alongside an Accountant in a food production company, initially in an administrative capacity, taking responsibility for admin procedures and stock control, then developing her role to include book keeping (using the SAGE system) and purchase orders. Further, she has trained as an ISO Auditor.

A very different string to Emma's bow is as a researcher for AQA - the "Ask" text service facility. This role required Emma to demonstrate real fluency and conciseness in English, with excellent writing skills. She also had to demonstrate that she had a depth of knowledge and highly efficient internet search skills, in order to answer a wide range of eclectic questions. As this job was done from home, Emma showed first class organisational skills as she combined this role with the caring of her four children, as well as taking an active role in the organisation of a range of charity events.

HELEN : ADMIN EXPERT

Helen has held a wide variety of administrative positions and has proven herself to be an asset to companies on a number of occasions. She has excellent organisational and inter-personal skills. Helen is able to tackle all administrative tasks, from filing to book-keeping and the range in between.

TRACY : ORGANISATIONAL EXPERT

Tracy has a BSc in Land Management and an MSc in Rural Resource Management. For the MSc she wrote a research project for Friends of the Earth and is definitely not afraid to turn her research skills to new areas of knowledge.

Her varied work experience ranges from commercial and residential property management to hands on support work with adults with learning difficulties. Tracy is very capable of managing her time and working to deadlines. As Community Support Manager for a Housing Association she managed a team of ten people based across two London Boroughs. She has always been happiest supporting others and a number of her posts have been project management roles supporting networks such as Home Improvement Agencies (with Care and Repair England) and lottery funded literacy projects (with Campaign for Learning).

In between her main posts she has supported herself with secretarial work and has worked in many different office environments, from universities to temping agencies.

Currently, Tracy's time is divided between her Virtual Assistant commitments, working as an examinations invigilator and as Treasurer of her children's playgroup, having stepped down from the role of Chair. Responsibilities within this area include budget management and staff management, as well as organising fundraising events.