Telecom
How Professional Executive Assistants Impact Work Culture
By Precious Emechebe
In today’s professional climate, the role of an Executive Assistant (EA) is disruptive. Much so with the availability of advanced technological and organisational tools.
Beyond managing information flow and attending meetings for high-level professionals such as a Chief Experience Officer (CXO), EAs now actively take part in more strategic, supervisory, and authoritative decisions.
To quote The Assist, “Today’s Chief Executives lean on their assistants not just for admin help but also for strategic counsel, technical expertise and critical analysis. EAs are expected to dabble in things as wide and varied as project management, event planning, and internal communications.”
This makes EAs as vital to an organisation’s growth and success as any other high-level professional.
So, what are these roles, their limitations, and their impact? Let’s take a deep dive:
1. EAs as Strategic Partners: EAs have a deep understanding of the industry they work in and the regulatory framework and policies that affect said industry. As a result, they make valid contributions that progress conversations and decisions of their Executives.
2. EAs as Professional Problem Solvers: Impossible is a word that does not exist in the dictionary of an EA. They are super connectors that make connections within and beyond their network. They make the most of their networking activities by keeping records of vital information on acquaintances and are quick to assist when necessary. This helps them earn and maintain lifetime access to influential decision-makers, thereby positively impacting the Executives and organisations they represent.
3. EAs as Trusted Confidants: A professional EA understands that one of the most significant responsibilities of the role is trust. This responsibility stems from working closely with those whose corridors crucial information is shared, and decisions are made regularly. Therefore, trust is an attribute they earn and do not trade for anything.
A professional EA is discreet, unassuming and cautious of the words they speak, as they understand the gravity of their responsibility and the consequences of loose lips.
These said, EAs are and can be more.
As an EA, you must stay committed to the path of personal and professional development. You are expected to take essential courses, join empowering associations to grow your network and influence, and expand your horizon.
This is critical in changing the prevalence of a wrong perception about the EA role limitations. It positions you as an asset to your superiors and your organisation.
Now, in what ways can an EA be an asset to a CXO or other superiors?
We’ll consider these two main factors:
1. The CXO or superior’s willingness to delegate part of their workload to the Executive Assistant: The essence of Executives having EAs is to have more time to focus on optimising strategic thinking and execution.
Melba Duncan, CEO of Duncan Group, in her 2011 Harvard Business Review article titled ‘The Case for Executive Assistants’ stated, “… an EA must make the executive 8% more productive than he or she would be working solo—for instance, the assistant needs to save the executive roughly five hours in a 60-hour workweek.”
Diligent EAs save their bosses much more time than that. As Robert Pozen, Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management, puts it, “A top-notch assistant is crucial to being productive.”
Progressive-minded CXOs are happy to empower and delegate work to competent EAs with the trust and assurance of professional execution.
Ultimately, an empowered EA can strategically organise and follow up on action items, manage information flow, attend to financial matters, and attend important meetings on their superior’s behalf.
2. The EA’s willingness to stretch beyond their comfort zone to assume new responsibilities: Successful EAs are simply those who don’t compromise on personal development. They are willing to push themselves beyond the rudimentary requirements of their jobs, utilising new languages, relations, and technological skills to function in global markets.
These types of EAs are invaluable assets to their bosses as they become masters in their primary roles, with the capacity and competence to take on new responsibilities.
Such EAs usually score high on emotional intelligence, as they can read their bosses’ shifts in behaviour and temperament, respond correctly, and accommodate their style to help them win.
These attributes endear such EAs to their bosses, who become more comfortable with participating in their growth within and outside the organisation.
To put it succinctly, Executive–Assistant relationships are business partnerships; strong ones are win-wins.
Precious Emechebe is the Executive Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer of MultiChoice Nigeria.
Airtel Nigeria has reaffirmed its long-term commitment to strengthening Nigeria’s digital infrastructure and data access to bridge gaps in connectivity and unlock new opportunities in the country.
The company restated this commitment during a recent high-level inspection tour of the Nxtra Data Centre that is being developed through Nxtra by Airtel Africa at Eko Atlantic, Lagos, the highly rated smart city with ambition to become the Data Centre hub of Nigeria.
The inspection tour was led by the Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Nigeria, Dinesh Balsingh and the Chief Executive Officer of Nxtra by Airtel Africa, Yashnath Issur, with the esteemed chairman of Eko Atlantic Mr. Gabbi Massoud, the CEO of the lead Engineering firm Design Group Limited, Mr. Bayo Odunlami and tech journalists.
The Nxtra Data Centre went through a stringent design validation process and cleared the approval to proceed construction from Eko Atlantic.
Commenting on the developments, Mr Issur said the site visit was a milestone marker and an indication of the company’s commitment to delivering the world-class digital facility on time and ensure that, ultimately, the investments deliver reliable, secure, world-class services for Nigeria and the rest of the continent.
“This Nxtra Data Centre in Lagos represents a critical part of our long-term vision for Nigeria’s digital ecosystem. Today’s visit allows us to review progress, engage our stakeholders, and ensure that our infrastructure investments continue to meet global standards and local needs.
“This data centre will deliver critical high multi megawatt capacity in line with hyperscale customers and enable high density environment. We are putting the infra to bring the cloud to Nigeria,” he said.
The data centre, set to be the largest in Nigeria, is being established to deliver hyperscale and edge facilities across key African markets. With a load of 38 Megawatts, the Lagos facility is expected to serve as a major hub for data hosting, cloud services, content distribution, artificial intelligence, and enterprise solutions in West Africa.
In his remarks, Mr Balsingh reiterated that the data centre was progressing steadily towards the previously announced 2028 go live date.
“Since the announcement of this project, our focus has been on building a world-class facility that supports Africa’s digital transformation agenda. We are encouraged by the progress recorded so far and remain committed to delivering a secure, energy-efficient, and future-ready data centre for Nigeria,” he said.
During the tour, stakeholders were ushered through key sections of the site, including piling zones, where required structural requirements have been tested. Technical teams provided briefings on infrastructure design, security architecture, redundancy systems, and sustainability measures being implemented to ensure reliability and operational excellence.
Strategically located close to major fibre routes and undersea cable landing stations, the Eko Atlantic data centre is designed to enhance Nigeria’s data sovereignty, reduce latency, and improve access to reliable digital services for private and enterprise customers, significantly boosting the country’s data hosting capacity and supporting emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
Mr. Massoud noted that the inspection tour underscored the city’s dedication to infrastructure of global relevance.
“Eko Atlantic as a city with high quality infrastructure will contribute positively to boost the economy of Nigeria and is a perfect place for the development of the digital infrastructure of Nigeria. The Nxtra data centre reflects the calibre of projects we seek to attract — long-term, technology-driven investments built to the highest global standards.
Today’s visit affirms the rigour of the planning and execution process by Nxtra, and the commitment of Eko Atlantic to facilitate and promote the Nigeria’s evolving digital ecosystem,” he said.
Through this ongoing investment, Airtel Nigeria and Nxtra continue to demonstrate their commitment to building infrastructure that enables innovation, supports economic development, and accelerates Nigeria’s digital transformation.
Nxtra by Airtel is developing a network of hyperscale data centres across the continent. Besides Lagos, construction of a new data centre has also commenced in Nairobi, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Google has partnered with top African research institutions to unveil WAXAL, a massive open-access speech dataset aimed at giving over 100 million people across Sub-Saharan Africa a stronger voice in the AI future.
The initiative, announced Monday, targets a key digital gap by supplying high-quality data for 21 local languages, such as Hausa, Yoruba, Luganda, and Acholi. It includes 1,250 hours of transcribed natural speech and more than 20 hours of studio-grade recordings for advanced synthetic voice tech.
Voice AI has exploded globally, yet Africa’s 2,000-plus languages suffer from severe data shortages, sidelining hundreds of millions from native-tongue tech access. WAXAL, three years in the making with Google funding, changes that equation.
“This dataset lays the groundwork for students, researchers, and entrepreneurs to craft tech in their own languages, impacting over 100 million lives,” said Aisha Walcott-Bryantt, Head of Google Research Africa.
She highlighted its potential for African innovators to develop educational tools and voice services that spark economic growth continent-wide.
Community-led from the start, the project involved Makerere University (Uganda), University of Ghana, Digital Umuganda (Rwanda), and others. These partners own the data outright, pioneering fair AI collaboration models.
Covered languages: Acholi, Akan, Dagaare, Dagbani, Dholuo, Ewe, Fante, Fulani (Fula), Hausa, Igbo, Ikposo (Kposo), Kikuyu, Lingala, Luganda, Malagasy, Masaaba, Nyankole, Rukiga, Shona, Soga (Lusoga), Swahili, Yoruba.
WAXAL goes live today. Details at goo.gle/IntroducingWaxal.
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has unveiled its Q4 2025 Network Performance Reports, showcasing nationwide quality boosts fueled by over $1 billion in industry investments and sharper regulatory focus.
NCC
Speaking at the launch, Dr. Aminu Maida, executive vice chairman, NCC, hailed the Ookla-backed data as proof of NCC’s drive for transparent, evidence-driven oversight of Nigeria’s digital growth.
The reports track real-user experiences across cities, villages, highways, and nascent 5G areas, revealing faster median download speeds in both urban and rural spots versus Q3 2025.
Video streaming quality gaps between city and countryside have shrunk, thanks to a beefed-up 4G network—yet 5G rollout lags, upload speeds falter, and coverage holes linger in spots.
Maida said NCC is leaning on operators to fix these via spectrum tweaks, infrastructure drives, and stricter service rules, with 2025’s 2,850 new sites already paying off in broader reach and capacity.
Operators pledge even bigger spends in 2026 to keep the momentum, aiming for top-tier connectivity and economic inclusion for all Nigerians.
“We’ll turn these insights into real gains in service and access,” Maida affirmed, calling for sustained industry teamwork.
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