Perth 27-28 May 2026
DAY ONE
8.30 Registration
9.00 Chair’s opening remarks
9.10 KEYNOTE – Breaking the silence: Using courage and resilience to influence and lead
- Finding your voice and your leadership with accountability, courage, and integrity in a role often defined by support rather than direct authority
- Leading through influence using quiet strength, strategic thinking, and emotional intelligence in high-pressure, complex environments
- Creating safer, more inclusive workplaces through EA-led advocacy, empathy, and shared awareness
- Using your personal story and resilience to empower colleagues and become a catalyst for positive cultural shift.
10.10 Networking as an Executive Assistant: Acquaint, accommodate, ally
- Leveraging both online platforms and face-to-face events to build a diverse, valuable network and the benefits of each
- Creating beneficial connections, step-by-step, using commonality, clarity, and continuity to deepen relationships
- Understanding the advantages and pitfalls of networking, and striking the right balance for your personality and goals
- Breaking into established circles as a new EA, or deepening your network as experienced EA.
11.05 Morning tea
11.30 EA PANEL – The ‘quiet achiever’ v ‘recognised achiever’: Executive Assistant leadership and influence through delegated authority
- Understanding why influence, not authority, is foundational to effective Executive Assistant leadership
- Using fresh perspectives to create, innovation and depth of knowledge to drive change
- Leading without authority’s upside and downside – foster creativity, encourage collaboration, reduce resistance, overcoming limited resources, lack of recognition of success
- Crafting strong relationships and engaging alliances across teams.
12.15 From the sideline to spotlight: Mastering verbal and non-verbal communication for EAs
- Understanding assertive communication in whatever your career phase
- Appreciating where verbal precision and non-verbal cues intersect and what approach is required
- Setting boundaries as an Executive Assistant to avoid the always saying ‘yes’
- Using assertiveness as a tool to elevate strategic influence.
12.55 Lunch
13.50 Peak Performance Playbook: Time, tech, and energy for EAs
- Decision-making and prioritisation using the 4N’s: Now, next, negotiate, never – a clear framework for handling conflicting requests and managing your tasks list and emails.
- Leveraging the in-built automation tools and incorporating Generative AI into your productivity system
- Creating a personal ‘energy audit’ template to identify your peak performance periods and align high-level tasks with your natural energy cycle
- Incorporating reflection sessions to review progress, recalibrate priorities, and celebrate achievements in how you manage your time.
14.35 Technical proficiency: Essentials for every EA’s toolbox
- Mastering core digital skills from different platforms as essential competencies for the future
- Taking away practical steps to trial, assess, and integrate tools seamlessly into workflows
- Evaluating tech to balance automation benefits against risks
- Future-proofing tactics for assistants at all levels to stay ahead in technology advancements
15.05 Afternoon tea
15.30 Maintaining calmness and professionalism in challenging settings
- Designing personalised wellbeing frameworks to accommodate changing support required to manage changing health dynamics
- Designing policies for the neurodiverse and the gender-diverse and tailoring support for gender specific health issues
- Creating inclusive health action plans for gendered needs and chronic conditions, informed by Australian case studies
- Implementing risk-tracking tools paired with data encryption on a need-to-know basis
16.15 SENIOR EXECUTIVE PANEL – Aligning understanding and direction between Executive/Executive Assistant
- Defining priorities and measuring success from the Executive’s point of view
- Developing the balance between autonomy and collaboration with your Executive Assistant
- Maintaining proactive foresight and diplomacy in stressful circumstances
- Evolving from support roles to strategic advisers.
17.00 Congress photo
17.10 Networking drinks
DAY TWO
9.00 Chair’s recap of Day One
9.10 Emotional intelligence: The invisible superpower for Executive Assistants
- Mastering the art of reading the room and interpreting subtle signals that guide strategic action
- Building trust through empathy to better understand how emotions drive professional influence
- Navigating high-pressure moments with calmness, clear-headedness, and emotional resilience
- Turning feedback into self-awareness to accelerate growth and collaboration.
9.50 EA PANEL – Supportive versus strategic: Reinventing the EA-Executive dynamic
- Growing business acumen and understanding organisational priorities to translate your Executive’s vision into actionable strategies
- Building your strategic toolkit – building trust, setting priorities, anticipating the good and the bad, ‘how are we doing’
- Knowing what partnership success looks like and using partnership elements to maintain that success
- Leveraging emerging technology for predictive scheduling, analysis, and decision-making, whilst keeping your high human value to the forefront
10.35 Morning tea
11.05 Using your ‘high human value’ with Copilot to build synergy and rhythm in your day
- Automating repetitive administrative tasks with Copilot to make time for high-value task focus
- Using Copilot Agents for real-time research, reporting, and data analysis
- Achieving greater efficiency in writing, scheduling, and document creation using Copilot’s features in Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint
- Building a modern digital toolkit to position yourself as a tech-savvy, future-ready Executive Assistant.
12.05 The growth mindset EA: Building your career in today’s workplace
- Leaping into leadership from the EA role
- Practising skill-stacking to break free from the promotional hierarchy
- Elevating your strategic capabilities with emerging technology while maintaining your ‘high human value’
- Seeking ‘stretch’ opportunities to test leadership capability.
12.45 Lunch
13.45 Thriving in the ‘fast lane’: Mastering adaptability in times of change
- Using techniques to bounce back fast and stay positive when the pressure’s on
- Changing gears to pivot quickly and effectively as priorities and strategies evolve
- Turning uncertainty into opportunity by welcoming new challenges with confidence
- Staying ahead of the curve by building habits that keep you agile and ready for whatever comes next.
14.30 EA PANEL – Mastering competing demands in high-pressure environments
- Resetting decision-making using next generation AI tools to analyse task importance and urgency
- Mapping impact versus urgency to categorise stakeholder importance and task impact
- Leveraging your resources to delegate beyond ‘traditional’ teams
- Thriving under competing demands by anticipating conflicts before they escalate.
15.15 Chair’s closing remarks
15.25 Afternoon tea
16.00 Congress concludes