Maria Cirillo, Executive Chair IMA, and Julia Schmidt, Executive Vice Chair, celebrate 50 years of IMA and explain why the future is bright
We are proud to be members of the first association of administrative professionals and part of the celebration of International Management Assistants’ (IMA) 50th Anniversary in 2024. In this article, we would like to share some of the association’s main achievements and highlight the value of building a global and collaborative network of like-minded professionals striving for excellence, learning, self-development, and professional growth.
Creating a Professional Association
Sonia Vanular (1922–2020), the founder of our association, dedicated 50 years of her life to the organization, clearly envisioning what it would bring to secretaries and the profession. As a former secretary, Sonia’s primary motivation was to create a new image for the secretarial profession; she sought to elevate the role and improve the status and prestige of secretaries in the business world.
“At that time, the image of the secretary was not the symbol of pride it is today. In the public mind, ‘secretary’ simply meant ‘woman’ with few intellectual capacities, able to make coffee for her manager and act as the maid of all work in the office. This was the reality in the seventies when the existing technologies were insufficient to help most secretaries develop and hone their skills further.” ~ EUMA 40 Year History, 2014
In 1974, EAPS (European Association of Professional Secretaries) was created as the first association of secretaries – a professional network where joint learning, sharing, and empowerment were the key objectives. Sonia and the founding members wanted the association to provide self-development and empower secretaries to design their job roles and advocate for the profession. The founding members came from Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The idea was that national groups would bring knowledge and new ideas from their respective countries and build sharing and learning platforms for collaboration within the association.
In the 50 years since 1974, the administrative profession has experienced a fast pace of change.
We have seen a tremendous improvement in how we are perceived as professionals, and the old way of seeing the role of the secretary has given way to a more empowered and modern view. From having a limited number of tasks – such as scheduling meetings, fielding phone calls, and organizing documents – the new role encompasses a broader scope of administrative support tasks. Today, this includes many managerial responsibilities, such as administering annual general meetings, managing company reports, overseeing travel, office management, project management, and supporting finance, marketing, communications, and HR departments.
Together, we are reinventing our roles, gaining respect, and being asked to sit at the table with our managers and executives. As part of its growth strategy, IMA continuously seeks new opportunities, embraces change, creates new national groups, and strives to add value to its members.
A Global Network of Professional Excellence
The association’s increasing focus on international aspects bore fruit in the early 2010s, resulting in Assistants from several continents joining. This global expansion led to a discussion about changing the association’s name. The name EUMA began to feel outdated, and after much debate, it became clear that IMA – International Management Assistants –was the name that reflected our global membership and vision for the future. With this name, we welcomed members from all over the world.
“The new name highlighted the need for technical skills and corresponding competencies. Organizations demanded continuous improvement of these skills, and management assistants became the heart of communication within business units, managing vast amounts of information daily and facing new challenges.” ~ EUMA 40 Year History, 2014
This international shift was more than symbolic. Members came to us from South Africa, India, and various other countries, expanding our global footprint. Our first conference outside Europe, held in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2023, was a testament to this growth. It was an event filled with excellent speakers and a national IMA group with a clear vision for the future.
Supporting the Assistant Career
Over the years, we have worked hard to foster sustainability for our profession and association. All our activities are closely related to building a sharing and learning platform. Maintaining a professional and international network that offers high-quality conferences, training, and webinars is essential to building sustainability so that our members can develop their competencies and stay up-to-date and upskilled. IMA offers international annual conferences and training days, council meetings, national activities organized by national groups, mentoring, networking, and management and administrative competency development.
In the IMA council meetings, held twice a year, board members of national groups discuss relevant topics impacting the profession. As the voice of their national groups, they share new ideas, contribute to the strategic plan, find solutions to various issues, and participate in the decision-making process.
We also embrace collaboration as a fundamental way to continuously reimagine value creation, explore fresh angles, and embrace diverse partnerships. Through our training partners, we offer up-to-date live and online training at global and national levels. Through our business partnership with the World Administrators Alliance, IMA participates in international surveys, contributes to task forces, access reports, and takes part in a bi-annual global summit dedicated to discussing relevant topics impacting the profession. These initiatives help us build a sustainable future for our profession in a rapidly evolving world.
This heightened level of relevant competencies boosts performance, increases productivity, and enables excellence. Personal development has always been at the core of IMA’s mission – and it’s one of the key reasons behind our long life as an association.
The demands are growing, and professionals and their employers expect consistent, high-level performance. IMA aims to be its members’ ultimate career supporter.
Succeeding Today While Building Tomorrow
The Assistant role has truly evolved over the years, transitioning from being perceived as “just an assistant” to becoming a business partner and member of management teams within companies. Our association realized that we must keep pace with these changes and offered our members the professional development needed to thrive. We are not just a social club; we are a professional association that supports self-development and enables our members to stay ahead of professional trends.
To help our members succeed today while preparing for tomorrow, we support their self-development strategies by focusing our training each year on a specific topic. For instance, in the twelve months starting in October 2024, we will explore artificial intelligence (AI) to understand how we can add more value to our organizations by becoming more knowledgeable on the topic and gaining the emergent skills that will keep us employable today and in the future.
IMA’s 50th Anniversary Celebration and 50th Annual Conference was held in Stockholm, Sweden, on 18 October 2024, with the theme “Artificial Intelligence: Threat or Opportunity?” We know that AI is here to stay and is becoming part of our day-to-day lives. As Assistants, we must keep up with this trend. We need to understand AI’s capabilities and prepare to help our organizations navigate the current and upcoming changes in workplaces and workforces driven by the impact of AI and automation. Our role as AI catalysts will be crucial in the years ahead.
With AI in the mix, the future for Executive Assistants is bright. As AI tools take over routine and analytical tasks, we will continue to evolve and support our managers and teams in more strategic ways. We will find great value in having more time for tasks requiring creativity, strategic thinking, problem-solving, and emotional intelligence, where AI cannot replace us. The journey ahead is exciting, and IMA is ready for it.
