What would you do in my position? CEO Office vs Senior Business Manager promotion
I need some career advice from fellow EAs because I genuinely don’t know what I would do if both of these options come off!
I’ve worked in EA/executive support roles for nearly 10 years and currently work as an EA supporting a C-suite exec. I’m on a good wage for my age and genuinely really like my current role, exec and team so I haven’t been looking to leave because I’m unhappy.
I was recently approached internally about an EA vacancy in our CEO Office. I applied because I thought it would be an amazing opportunity to get CEO Office experience and continue moving my career more towards Business Management/strategic support. Longer term I’d like to keep progressing down that route rather than stay purely EA.
I told my current manager about it and he was really supportive. However, since then we’ve had conversations about what I want from my career and he has now said he’s going to speak to HR and Finance about potentially promoting me to Senior Business Manager within my current function to keep me.
From what we’ve discussed, the Senior BM role would involve line management of the other EA’s as well as broader responsibility within the function with a pay band jump.
Interestingly, the hiring manager for the CEO Office role is a Senior Business Manager, so if the promotion happened I’d essentially be moving to the same level as the person I would otherwise be reporting to.
Obviously none of this is guaranteed yet and I’m continuing with the CEO Office process regardless.
But hypothetically, if you had both options, what would you choose?
1. CEO Office – lateral move but opportunity to work directly within the CEO Office, gain exposure across the whole organisation and add CEO-level experience to my CV.
2. Senior Business Manager in my current function – promotion, likely salary increase, line management of the other EA’s in my function, more senior responsibility and the opportunity to stay with an exec/team I really enjoy working with.
My head is honestly scrambled because I originally thought the CEO Office role was the obvious next step for my career, but I absolutely wasn’t expecting my current team to potentially offer me this.
Would love to know what other EAs would do!