SWINDON businesswoman Donna Redshaw has been crowned Virtual Assistant of the Year for the South West.

The 38-year-old mother-oftwo runs Diamond PA Services, in Haydon Wick, and will now go on to the national finals of the UK’s Virtual Assistant of the Year competition, sponsored by BeMyVA, at London’s Olympia in October after seeing off hundreds of other contestants from across the region.

Donna, who got her first admin job at the tender age of 16, puts her success down to a varied career, which has involved supporting people from the CEO of a company to the most junior assistant.

She started as an import and export clerk at Intel before working for a company supplying shelving and display furniture for major supermarkets.

She has also run a cake shop where she designed and made the cakes and then worked for a property search company until she was made redundant.

“After that, I got offered a one day temping job in Malmesbury which I left four years later having gone from a temp to PA to the CEO in just nine months,” she said.

“I think all these jobs helped me to learn how to ensure people were in the right place at the right time.

“I’ve always enjoyed problem solving and being resourceful.

“All the jobs I’ve done have had high attention to detail.

“I have also done party planning, run my own pub and spent seven years as a childminder.

“I can juggle and multitask really well.

“I really enjoy meeting people and making sure everyone is looked after.”

Donna launched her own company, Diamond PA Services, in October 2012. She began working from home but now has her own office and a growing team of staff and clients.

“We are unique in that we offer a complete virtual administration service which includes telephone answering administration and bookkeeping,” she said.

In her spare time Donna has been training for the Pitman PA Diploma and the Advanced Diploma.

She has just five left to take and to date has achieved distinctions in 29.

Diamond PA Services offers a virtual assistant solution helping business owners deal with day-to-day administration.

Services include telephone answering service including one-off holiday cover, dayto-day office requirements, bookkeeping and data entry.

For more information visit diamondpaservices.co.uk.