DonnaPro in the Spotlight

Discover how we are redefining executive support. Explore our latest media features, industry insights, and thought leadership from across the globe. For the story behind the mission, visit Our Story.

DonnaPro Introduces AI-Trained Executive Assistants for European CEOs

This isn't automation replacing human judgment; it's AI tools amplifying the effectiveness of skilled professionals who already know how to think ahead.

Filip Pesek Built DonnaPro After a Decade of Delegation Mistakes — Now He Helps CEOs Avoid Them

Good delegation doesn't happen because you hired someone. It happens because you built the system that makes delegation work.

Why AI Hasn't Killed Outsourcing Yet

The displacement is real, but the mechanism has been misread. The administrative function is not being eliminated — it is being repriced, relocated, and moved off the domestic payroll line entirely.

The Handover Problem HR Ignores

Whether it's the EA who knows how every meeting gets prepped or the ops manager who understands every workflow, when these people resign, months of context and years of experience leave with them.

Founder Burnout Isn't Something to Be Proud Of

It seems obvious to start by delegating the jobs you hate, but that is often the biggest first mistake. Delegation works best built gradually, starting with the highest-volume, lowest-judgement tasks.

DonnaPro Breaks Down What ‘AI-Trained’ Actually Means for Executive Assistants

A virtual assistant handles tasks. An executive assistant handles outcomes — and that shift, from executor to thinking partner, is what most services skip.

How DonnaPro Helps European CEOs Buy Back 60 Hours Every Month

There's a quiet drain happening in founder schedules across Europe. It doesn't make headlines, but it costs CEOs thousands of hours a year that should go to strategy and growth.

The Developer-Founder Operating Stack: Delegating Everything That Isn't Code

Somewhere around the point where the business gets real, the founder stops building and starts administrating. That is not a time management problem. It is a systems problem.

New data shows UK CEOs spend less than half their time on high-value work

Research tracking how chief executives in the United Kingdom and internationally allocate their working hours has produced a consistent finding that carries significant implications for British business performance.

AI Gave Every CEO More Capacity. Why Are They More Overwhelmed Than Ever?

The bottleneck has shifted from doing to deciding, and deciding is the one thing a chief executive cannot delegate to a model.

It Is Rarely the Law That Ends a Legal Career. It Is the Admin.

When a single individual carries both the fee-earning work and the administrative load that protects it, capacity becomes the constraint on safety.

The £84,000 Risk Hiding in Every Founder-Led Finance Firm

Key-person dependency is not an abstract governance concern. It is a measurable operational exposure with consequences for continuity, valuation, and resilience.

AI Isn't Replacing Executive Assistants - It's Raising the Bar

In this article, the WEF's "EA decline" data gets put under the microscope - revealing a market that isn't shrinking so much as splitting, with AI separating senior strategic partners from administrative task-doers.

How Filip Pesek Built DonnaPro for Overwhelmed Founders

In this interview, Pesek shares the lessons he learned from bootstrapping the company, building a remote international team, and helping founders step out of the center of every decision.

The Rise of the Part-Time Executive Assistant: How UK Founders Are Getting C-Suite Support on a Scale-Up Budget

There is a quiet revolution happening in how UK founders get executive support. For decades, the model was binary: either you were big enough to justify a full-time executive assistant, or you did everything yourself. Calendar, inbox, travel, investor updates, follow-ups, personal admin - all of it sat on the founder's plate until the company could afford a dedicated hire.

The Real Cost of Hiring an Executive Assistant in the UK - and What Founders Are Doing Instead

There is a moment every founder eventually faces. The calendar is full. The inbox is unmanageable. The to-do list keeps growing. And somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, the actual work of building a business - the strategy, the decisions, the vision - keeps getting pushed to tomorrow.

Part-Time Executive Support vs. Hiring Full-Time: What the Numbers Actually Say

A clear-eyed look at the real employer costs of hiring a full-time executive assistant versus using a part-time support service, with figures UK business owners can actually use.

Why Founders Who Delegate Faster Scale Further

AI Is Automating Tasks, But CEOs Still Need Human Operators to Manage the Work Around Them

The bottleneck for modern executives isn't task execution anymore - it's context. AI can draft the email, but it takes a human to know which one actually matters.

What European Founders Teach Us About the Future of Global Hiring

Basic task management isn't enough to scale. Filip Pesek joins the Freedom of Work podcast to discuss "brain-sharing" delegation - a model that helps European founders reclaim 60 hours a month by shifting from simple task-taking to deep strategic alignment

The First Hire Every UK Founder Gets Wrong - and How to Fix It

The Future of HR Operations: How Virtual Assistant Agency Support Is Transforming People Teams

HR teams often hit a crisis where operational demands outpace strategic growth. Filip Pesek explores how delegated support for onboarding and administration allows HR leaders to move beyond paperwork and focus on high-level culture building and talent development.

The Automated Founder: A Growth Expert's Guide to 'Zero-Trust' Delegation

High-value leaders often engage in "shadow OpEx" by performing administrative labor at a CEO's salary premium. Filip Pesek explores how "operational debt" creates an invisible drag on EBITDA and stalls strategic execution for finance leaders.

From Bottleneck to Builder: Why Letting Go is a Strategic Leadership Move

Startups thrive on founder hustle, but doing it all can become a growth bottleneck. This piece explores the hidden costs of over-functioning leadership and makes the case for strategic delegation.

The hidden productivity tax: Why UK founders pay more than they realise

Every hour spent on admin carries an invisible price tag. Filip Pesek breaks down why UK founders face an annual opportunity cost of over £50,000 when they choose to manage their own calendars instead of driving strategic innovation.

I Built DonnaPro for Founders Like Me

DonnaPro CEO shares his story of building DonnaPro, a service that provides adaptable virtual assistants to help fellow founders save time, reduce stress, and accelerate their progress.

The £84,000 Question: When Founders Should Stop Doing It All Themselves

Handling your own admin isn't a matter of capability - it's an opportunity cost. Data shows founders lose roughly £84,000 annually by staying mired in operational noise instead of high-value strategic growth.

Leveraging AI Tools and Remote Teams to Drive Business Productivity

Most leaders think productivity is a choice between hiring people or buying software. Filip Pesek breaks down why this is a false dichotomy and explains how the most efficient businesses combine AI speed with human judgment to fundamentally shift what a founder can accomplish.

How We Train Executive Assistants to Think Like Founders

Discover how DonnaPro trains elite executive assistants to think like founders, giving CEOs true support - not just task completion.

Why Your Lead Generation Success Is Creating Your Biggest Bottleneck

Lead generation success is only half the battle; the real work begins when the leads pour in. This piece explores why founders spending 20 hours a week on lead management are actually creating a bottleneck that stalls their ability to close deals and build the business.

How Virtual Assistants Can Supercharge Your Digital Marketing Efforts

The real bottleneck in digital marketing isn't a lack of strategy or creativity - it's execution bandwidth. Filip Pesek shares how outsourcing campaign tracking and social scheduling allows agency owners to stop sabotaging their own growth and focus on high-level strategy.

The Automation Trap: Why Top Tech Founders Are Pairing AI with Human Assistants

The promise that AI would make assistants obsolete has crashed into reality. Learn why the most successful tech founders in 2026 are pairing AI speed with human judgment to escape the "Automation Trap" and reclaim their strategic focus.

The Automated Founder: A Growth Expert's Guide to 'Zero-Trust' Delegation

Growth marketers obsess over lead funnels, but the "operational funnel" is where momentum actually goes to die. Filip Pesek breaks down the silent killer of startups - Operational Debt - and how to stop being the bottleneck in your own success story.

The "20-Hour Rule:" How to Reclaim a Full Work Week Without Hiring a Full-Time Team

Chaos isn't a badge of honor - it's a liability. Filip Pesek explains how founders get stuck in the "Operator Trap" and how to reclaim a full work week of strategic capacity without the overhead of a full-time team.

The 'Delegation Gap': Why Smart Founders Stay Small

The "Delegation Gap" is the distance between what you can do and what you should do. This piece breaks down why the fear of letting go is the single biggest reason smart founders stay small and how to bridge that gap to reclaim your time.

The CEO's Dilemma: Are You Your Company's Most Expensive Admin?

Are you a leader or just your company's most expensive employee? Filip Pesek shares his transition from the "busy" trap at Spark to becoming a true strategist, proving that doing your own $20/hour admin tasks is a massive drain on company growth.

The Competence Trap: Why Being Good at Everything Makes Founders Worse Leaders

For Europe's most capable founders, skill is becoming a liability. Filip Pesek explores why mastering every department - from sales to finance - actually prevents leaders from scaling and turns their own competence into a barrier to growth.

Busy UK founders waste £84,000 annually on admin tasks, new data shows

Is being "busy" the same as being productive? Following a study of 60,000 CEO hours, this piece highlights the high cost of the admin burden and why top executives are being forced to rethink how they spend their time.

Why Tech Founders Are Pairing AI with Human Assistants

AI was supposed to replace human assistants, but tech founders are discovering a different reality. This piece explores why the most successful leaders are combining AI tools with human intuition to achieve results that automation alone cannot deliver.