Our Purple VAs are the glue that holds your business together
Meet Jennifer - Founder of PVAs/Online Business Manager
I’ve had a varied career, starting out at the tender age of 18 as a PA in London, topping up my salary singing professionally, under the stage name 'The Purple Diva' at weekends.
After 20 years in corporate HR and office management, I was loving my freelance role as Project Manager for a major NHS development when the injuries I sustained in a serious car accident left me unable to work for a long time.
The tragic loss of a friend in the London Bombings, coupled with the devastating loss of my best friend and soulmate just five weeks after my beautiful niece was born caused me to radically reassess my life. I decided to study for a science degree. Multiple hospital admissions meant it took years to complete, but against all the odds, I graduated with First Class Honours!
You don't get rid of me that easily!
Grit, determination and a liberal smattering of qualifications (including ‘distinction’ for Train the Trainer and TUC Learning Rep) mean that I bring both brains and heart to the table.
As well as founding and running PVAs, as well as being an Online Business Manager, I support CEOs, entrepreneurs, teams, departments (and the occasional slightly panicked project lead) to bring their big ideas to life - on time, on budget, and exactly as planned (or even better!).
Not one for blowing my own trumpet (although I can squeeze out a few notes on a trombone or French Horn!) I’m known as a project wrangler, people whisperer, and all-round organiser of chaos!
Meet Ruth – Lover of words (and maps!)
Equipped with a Masters in TV Features and Documentary Production, Ruth knows how to present a story with maximum impact to a range of audiences. When researching for a project, her insatiable appetite for information means that no stone will be left unturned in examining a story from every angle.
Boasting a ridiculously broad spectrum of skills developed through academic study, vocational training and over 25 years’ experience in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors, there’s not much Ruth won’t try her hand at!
Whether she’s crafting engaging features for commercial publications, creating website copy, social media content, fundraising proposals or exhibition displays, Ruth brings an enthusiastic, thoughtful approach to every project.
Having hung up her backpack (for now!) Ruth’s passion for travel means that she loves to live vicariously through other people. She loves nothing more than researching business and leisure travel, putting together options for dining, accommodation, entertainment and activities for clients’ consideration.
The Dynamic Duo...
The first photograph features ‘Jenny’ (aka the smelliest donkey in history). If we’re going to get along, it’s extremely important to note that I do not like being called any variation of 'Jennie' (I’m likely to go feral!) I much prefer my full name, Jennifer.
There wasn’t a smelly donkey called ‘Ruthy’ – so she was spared this trauma!
Ruth and I cherish spending time with our close family, getting up to all sorts of shenanigans, terrifyingly competitive family games nights and traditional seaside holidays.
PLEASE NOTE: We have had to remove the photos of family games nights, as a first aider was required after a particularly raucous game of 'Mousie-Mousie'!
Jennifer after dark (well, when we've shut the office!)
When I’m not setting the business world alight, my main passions outside of work are music (especially singing), arts and crafts, baking and decorating celebration cakes, organising family holidays and revelries.
I knit Trauma Teddies for our local police station. These are given to children who attend the police station, to provide comfort at what can be a scary time.
I sponsor a delightful little girl in Berkina Faso and we write to each other regularly, updating each other on what is going on in our lives.
As Head of Member Welfare for ExcludedUK, I oversee a team of Mental Health First Aiders and help Members to access support (further information below).
Off-duty Ruth (or should that be ‘Duty Free’?!)
When she’s not working, Ruth’s daughter is a force of nature who keeps her (and her Auntie J) on her toes for most of her waking hours!
A seasoned traveller with a bookshelf full of well-thumbed Lonely Planet guides, Ruth loves nothing more than researching and writing about destinations both on and off the beaten track. Her dream of being a globe-trotting travel writer and restaurant critic is being realised on a more local scale, through the regional leisure and visitor guides she writes for other clients.
WARNING: Ruth is obsessed with maps and would wallpaper her entire home with them given half a chance!
Be part of the family!
We are all about shenanigans and family life. If you’re in our lives, you are essentially part of our extended family too - whether you like it or not!
We know that we’re blessed to have close family bonds and a wide circle of friends and contacts and an amazing, ever-growing, team of VAs. This is not something we take for granted – we prioritise our relationships over everything, because people are what matter.
Both of us enjoy great relationships with former employers, colleagues and clients, many of whom have commissioned our services in the years since leaving the place we met.
Professionalism is always accompanied with genuine warmth and care. The fact that clients return again and again (sometimes after many years and following career changes) is testament to the quality of our input and our loyalty and dedication to our clients.
WARNING: Once we’ve got to know each other really well, the nicknames might start to sneak in (I’m looking at you ‘Captain Chaos’!).
One of the biggest compliments Ruth received was being referred to as the ‘Goose’ to a client’s ‘Maverick’ – they remain firm friends to this day.
One of my very favourite people on the planet refers to me as her ‘Life Wife’ – I love it and consider it a huge compliment!
ExcludedUK was established in May 2020 to represent the 3.8 million UK taxpayers excluded from parity of government financial support during the Covid-19 pandemic.
We are working with Lords, MPs, the media and other agencies, to try and negotiate with the government a way forward for those who were severely impacted by not receiving fair and equal financial support when they were told they could not work, or open their businesses, but did not receive the same support as the other 90% of the working population.
We dutifully paid in but were deliberately left out, due to policy decisions made by the previous Conservative government.
Jennifer and Ruth are members of the ExcludedUK family and Jennifer is Head of Member Welfare. Ruth also helps occasionally with Press Releases, copywriting and cheering Jennifer up following a particularly harrowing call with one of the many vulnerable members, whom she check on regularly.
Please ask your MP to join our 'Gaps in Covid-19 Financial Support' APPG (All-Party Political Group) to help campaign for a solution to an ongoing issue that has already taken at least 40 lives and resulted in hundreds of attempted suicides too, as well as businesses closing, people being made bankrupt, all through no fault of their own.
Please see more by clicking the link below: