Meet Purvi. Your go-to EA insider.
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Work, wit, and a little stubborn hope.
I am an EA.
Ten years ago, I started a role that set the tone for my EA career, a position that aligned perfectly with my instincts and values. The work is purposeful, the people strong, and the business carried the kind of integrity that keeps you invested. It was not dramatic. It was right. It shaped the way I work quietly, clearly, and with conviction.
And with ambition.
I still remember the day of the interview – 14 January 2015, 2 pm.
By 6 pm, Rosie called.
That moment defined the next chapter of my career. The founding partners of Halcyon brought me there. It did not just launch my EA career in a place where I could thrive. It also cemented a decade-long professional friendship.
Fast forward ten years, and motherhood has arrived. It forces you to meet yourself in real time, not your CV self, not the polished persona you have honed but the real you whilst negotiating sleep at 3 am with the diplomacy of a G7 summit with a newborn.
Somewhere in those moments, I found unexpected clarity about my career.
Over the past decade, Mel and Charlotte from Halcyon have become a kind of professional constant and the kind you do not question because their version of “good people know good people” keeps proving itself true. They work the way I try to live – human, honest, hard-working, and importantly, happy about it. They have been by my side at every pivotal stage of my career from sabbaticals to new roles to maternity leave.
I have always admired women who speak plainly and act boldly, and I’ve long resonated with Eleanor Roosevelt’s ethos: “Do one thing every day that scares you.” Growth does not come from certainty. It comes from stepping into the unfamiliar, the uncomfortable, the unplanned.
Which brings me here, doing the unfamiliar and using my voice. Writing a series not to glorify the EA profession, and not to soften it either, but to cut through the noise. A collection of clean insights. You will not find ‘I fell into being an EA’ or ‘Strategic EA’ here. In fact, I never planned my career and never prepared for it. I grew into it.
My career has not been perfect and there have been misgivings but as far as possible I will share my own personal insights, honestly. There is a danger of sounding dogmatic as though one has all the answers, which would be utter nonsense.
I will not pretend to know it all, I do not know it all. But, I will share honestly. And that is why my opening sentence is purposely understated.
So, consider this the first essay, the preface, of a conversation. Not a grand announcement, not a CV dressed up in literary clothing, but a doorway into the work, humour, and stubborn hope that have shaped my professional life so far. If you step through, I promise to keep the tone honest, the insights useful, and the wit as dry as the coffee I keep forgetting to drink, thanks to my tiny human.
