Ellyshah Giana La Torre – Executive Sales Associate, Virtual Assistant

Hello! My name is Ellyshah Giana La Torre, I am 27 years of age and I am currently residing in the Land of the Morning, Child of the Sun Returning, the Philippines. You may call me Eeya for short. I am an undergraduate with a Bachelor of Arts Major in Linguistics at Concordia College of Benguet. One fun fact about me is that we named all of our children after colours. Red, Gray and Violet.

I never really thought of being a virtual assistant until the pandemic hit us. Life has been a little chaotic at that time and life was just very sad at that exact moment. A lot of lives were taken including loved ones and we just needed to get back on track.

I started working at a very young age, at 18, still an undergraduate, I was a customer service representative for different BPOs in different companies. I was doing a wide range of tasks, like answering questions through calls, emails and chats, solving problems, or providing assistance to customers all over the world. Then I became an ESL Teacher or English Tutors to Chinese students. I was teaching kinder to professionals like Engineers, Teachers, and the likes.

Then while I was assigned as a home-based ESL Teacher, I tried being a Virtual Assistant at night. So I was working 2 jobs at the same time. What I liked most about being a Virtual Assistant is that it allows me to constantly learn and grow and I also enjoyed working on a variety of projects across different industries which keeps my work exciting and helps me develop new skills.

That’s when I took a leap of faith in being a full-time home-based Virtual Assistant. Adjusting to a work-from-home setup is just a piece of cake for me. Since I was working at a graveyard shift before, everything was easy. You don’t have to get up early with just a little sleep to prepare for your job in which you are still going to commute from your house to your workplace. I managed to be an executive assistant to a vice president of a company and for a gym owner assisting them with administrative tasks such as payroll, email management, scheduling, project management, inbound and outbound calls, social media marketing and so much more.

While I was also an Executive Assistant, I also had the chance to train other VAs as to what my daily tasks are, the processes of our company and such. I find it very fulfilling as I am to be in a leadership role someday if given the chance again to set a great example and also to be an inspiration for my fellow colleagues.

Your success over the years depends on maintaining a positive perspective, giving your best at all times, and accepting responsibility for your work in every way. There is nothing too big for you to handle when you make every effort to comprehend, ask questions when needed, and accept responsibility for your actions.

I firmly believe that being a virtual assistant can be a challenging role in terms of our career-making, but in the end, challenges are what makes life more interesting and they are also learning opportunities where we can grow, foster, upskill and most importantly, mould us to be successful.

I strive for progress in my career by acquiring new skills and knowledge that I can utilise in both my personal and professional life.

For a copy of Ellyshah’s resume, please click here.