Executive assistant CV guides · by Lily Shippen, EA recruiter
The private equity and family office executive assistant CV
Written by Lily Shippen, founder of the Lily Shippen EA, PA and chief of staff recruitment agency. Thirteen years of shortlisting, tens of thousands of CVs read, and every rule on this page is one I use at my own desk. Who I am
A private equity or family office executive assistant CV gets shortlisted when it shows three things a generalist EA CV usually leaves out, which are the deal or investment cycle you've supported and at what stage, the confidential material you were trusted with and how you handled it, and the standard of the people you dealt with on your principal's behalf. These employers hire on discretion and judgement first and on diary skills second, so the CV needs to lead with the first two, and it can do that without breaching a single confidence.
Private equity firms, venture funds, hedge funds and family offices are the most exacting EA employers I recruit for and the ones where a generic CV fails fastest, because the partners reading it have read hundreds, they read quickly and they're looking for a small number of specific signals. A CV that's excellent for a corporate role can still be passed over in a fund because it never mentions the things a fund cares about, and I've had to make that call more often than I'd like, so this guide is about what those signals are and how to show them without breaching anything.
What these employers read for
- Discretion, evidenced, rather than the word itself, because every EA CV says discreet and a fund wants to see that you've held material with real consequences, whether a data room, a fundraise, a family's personal affairs or an unannounced transaction, which you can show without naming a deal, as I'll cover below.
- The cycle you've supported, whether fundraising, due diligence, completion, portfolio management, investor reporting or an exit, because if you've worked through any of these the CV needs to say which, for how long and what you ran inside it.
- The standard of contact, meaning limited partners, co-investors, portfolio company CEOs, lawyers and advisers or a family's private bankers, and who came to you first and how you handled them.
- Precision, because a fund is a place where a wrong date on a completion timetable costs money, so the CV itself is read as evidence of precision and a date missing from a role or a tense that changes halfway through a bullet counts against you more here than anywhere else.
- For family offices, the private side, meaning households, properties, travel that's personal rather than corporate, family members of different generations, and the ability to move between a board paper and a school run without either suffering.
Showing confidential experience without breaching it
The question I'm asked most often by EAs moving into or between funds is how to show deal experience when everything they touched was confidential, and the answer is that the CV describes the shape of the work and never the parties, which is easy once you see the difference.
Too vague to count
Supported the partners on confidential transactions and handled sensitive information with discretion.
Specific, and breaches nothing
Ran the logistics of an 18-month fund raise for a £600m vehicle, coordinating 14 advisers across two firms and maintaining the data room index through 40 investor due diligence requests.
A family office example
Sole assistant to the principal of a single family office, managing a household of three properties in two countries, the family's personal travel of roughly 80 trips a year, and the confidential correspondence of two generations, with nothing in six years reaching anyone it should not have.
The fund size, the number of advisers, the number of requests and the length of the process are all real and none of it identifies anyone, which is the standard to write to, and if you're unsure whether a figure is safe, round it and say so, or leave the figure and keep the shape.
The profile
Three sentences in the first person, covering who you support and what kind of fund or office it is with scale, what you're trusted with, and the thread through your career, and for a fund the thread is often the cycle, because "I have supported two funds from first close to exit" says more than any adjective ever could.
Executive assistant to a managing partner, private equity
I am executive assistant to the managing partner of a 40-partner mid-market private equity firm, supporting him through two fund raises and 11 platform investments. I run his diary, his investor relationships and the partnership's quarterly meeting cycle, and I hold the confidential material that nobody else in the support team sees. Partners come to me first when something needs to happen quietly and correctly.
Executive assistant, single family office
I am executive assistant to the principal of a single family office, and I have run her professional and private life for five years across three properties, a foundation and an investment portfolio managed with two external advisers. I decide what reaches her and what does not, hold spend authority to £10,000, and manage the household staff of four. She travels 80 days a year and has not missed a flight, a meeting or a birthday in that time.
Key achievements for a fund or family office CV
Four to six lines, each an outcome with a figure, and these are the shapes that get funds and family offices to call.
- A process through a raise or a deal, such as "Ran due diligence logistics through an 18-month fund raise, coordinating 14 advisers across two firms."
- The investor or partner cycle owned, such as "Managed the partnership's quarterly meeting cycle, papers for 40 partners and 120 actions a year tracked to completion."
- Something built, such as "Built the firm's first investor event programme from nothing: six roadshows a year across four cities, now run by a team of two."
- Money handled with authority, such as "Held a £250,000 household and travel budget and approved spend to £10,000 on my own authority, with the family's accountant signing off my quarterly reconciliation without a query in five years."
- A crisis handled quietly, such as "Rebuilt a US roadshow overnight after a cancelled flight, with the principal in front of every investor on the original schedule."
The experience section, and what to name
Name the firm if it's known and you're permitted to, and name the fund size and strategy in a line under the firm, because I can't always tell a £200m growth fund from a £5bn buyout house from the name alone and neither can the partner reading your CV at a rival, and name the systems, such as Diligent, Intralinks, Datasite, DealCloud, Salesforce, Concur and the family office platforms, because funds search CVs for them.
For a family office, don't name the family unless you have explicit permission, because "A single family office with interests in property, hospitality and a charitable foundation" is enough and it's what a family office recruiter expects to read, whereas naming a family without permission is the one thing on a CV that will end an application in this sector, and it will end it quietly, without anyone telling you why.
Moving into a fund from a corporate role
Funds take EAs from corporate roles all the time, and the ones who get through are the ones whose CV translates, because if you've supported a CFO through an audit, a general counsel through a dispute or a CEO through a results cycle, you've worked with confidential, time-critical, adviser-heavy processes, and the CV should describe them in those terms with that evidence moved to the top of each role. The career changer's guide has the method for finding it, and the CEO's assistant guide covers the authority evidence that funds read for.
The mistakes I see most
- Saying "discreet" instead of showing it, because in this sector the word is filler.
- Leaving out the fund size, the stage or the strategy, so that the reader can't place the scale.
- A date missing from any role, which in a fund reads as carelessness.
- Listing personal support for a family in a tone that sounds apologetic, when running a principal's private life at that standard is the job and should be written with the same precision as the board cycle.
- Repetition for its own sake, because partners read quickly and a line that says what an earlier line already said is the one that loses them, whereas a longer CV where every line earns its place is read to the end.
The free CV checker marks trust and proof separately from format, which is where fund and family office CVs usually score low, because the evidence exists and simply isn't on the page yet, and the section by section guide covers the rest of the document.
Common questions
How do I show deal experience on an EA CV without breaching confidentiality?
Describe the shape of the work and never the parties, meaning the length of the process, the fund size rounded, the number of advisers, investors or requests, and what you ran inside it, because "Ran due diligence logistics through an 18-month fund raise, coordinating 14 advisers across two firms" is specific and identifies nobody.
What do family offices look for on an executive assistant CV?
Evidence that you've run a principal's private and professional life to the same standard, covering households and properties, personal travel, family members across generations, confidential correspondence and household staff, with figures, and discretion shown through a track record rather than stated as an adjective, never naming a family without permission.
Can a corporate EA move into private equity?
Yes, and it happens often, as long as the CV translates corporate experience into the terms a fund reads for, meaning confidential, time-critical, adviser-heavy processes such as audits, results cycles, disputes and transactions, with the evidence moved to the top of each role.
Should I list the funds or families I have worked for?
Name a firm if it's public and you're permitted, describe a family office rather than naming the family unless you have explicit permission, and give the fund size, strategy and stage in a line under the employer, because that's how a recruiter places the scale of the role.
See where your CV stands first.
Margot marks your current CV out of 100 on the five things a recruiter shortlists on, free, before we ask for anything. Then she interviews you and writes it to this standard.
Score my CV for free
Lily Shippen
FOUNDER, LILY SHIPPEN, EA, PA AND CHIEF OF STAFF RECRUITMENT · THIRTEEN YEARS PLACING EAS
Lily has read tens of thousands of EA CVs and shortlisted the ones that worked. Margot is her screening interview, written down. About Lily and this site