Renee Hastings is the President and CEO of Executive Help Now, a premier virtual assistance service agency. She leads a skilled team of account executives, project managers, specialists, podcast producers, and executive assistants who provide project management, investor coordination, podcast production support, and business consulting for venture capital firms, private equity and real estate investors, family offices, small business owners, content creators, and busy executives.

With over 20 years of experience helping clients reclaim time, freedom, and peace of mind, Hastings recently shared her insights on business leadership, delegation, and the transformative role of AI in modern executive support.

What inspired you to start Executive Help Now, and how did you develop this trusted system for executives?

I started Executive Help Now back in 2014, and it actually came about as part of what I knew how to do. Someone always said to me, if you’re going to start a business, do what you know, and do what you love.

From the time I was 13 years old, I knew that I wanted to one day run an office or own my own business. That was because of an example that was set for me by a Black woman who owned a Norell Temporary Services franchise.

For me and my community where I lived in Madison, Wisconsin, there were not a lot of us, and so for me to see a Black woman owning a business, it became possible. If you see something happening, you’re like, okay, well, if they can do it, surely this must be a thing that I can do, too.

From 13, I made a decision to focus my studies on whatever it takes to be successful in business. So I took all of the classes in school, the DECA, the marketing, all of the things that would prepare me for business. I ended up graduating from high school at 16 years old, still with this focus on my mind of being a business owner.

When you speak to other CEOs, what are three benefits that make a pivotal role if they decide to choose your company?

One of the three benefits for CEOs is increased productivity, that’s the main thing. Lower costs, because they don’t have all the overhead, and they get a strategic partner to go walk alongside them to help them execute on all of their brilliant ideas. So those are the three massive benefits to hiring us.

How important is pivoting, and what are two indicators that tell a CEO they need to pivot?

I think that the business economy plays a big part in that. Whatever your industry is, there’s a book called Who Moved My Cheese? and you can see the writing on the wall usually a lot sooner than the time when it actually comes to make the pivot.

When you start to see the writing on the wall that things are changing in your industry, people are doing things differently in your industry, you need to not ignore those. Be one of the first to pivot and take advantage and leverage the opportunities that become available because of this new need in this industry.

Can you describe three moments in your journey as a female entrepreneur where women need to take up space when opportunities or challenges present themselves?

One of the things that I would say that we need to really think about when we’re faced with these new challenges, or faced with these new opportunities, this is unforeseen territory. This is new ground. This is new land that we get to take.

We need to actually know that, number one, we are capable, because we all have our own unique God given gifts, skills, and talents, and He wouldn’t have put them in us if we weren’t supposed to use them. So we need to recognize who we are and who’s we are, and go ahead with confidence, knowing that we’re supposed to be there. The color of our skin or the gender of our body does not tell our story. We can defy any odds, because we know who we belong to.

Delegation is something many people don’t understand. What are three powerful things that happen when you are a great delegator?

First of all, don’t be afraid to delegate. Lack of delegating comes from fear. Fear of losing control, fear of perfectionism, all of these things. Realize that in order for you to grow as a professional, as a CEO, as a business, you have to get over your inability to delegate and let go of the control so that other people can support you and your business, and you can scale and grow from there.

No business was ever successful or grew to any magnificent size on the back of one person. You have to build a team, and you have to figure it out quickly how to let go and let people operate in their gifts. Because you don’t have to do all of the things to be successful, you need to surround yourself with the people who are experts in their field. And that’s how you build a team, that’s how you scale, and that’s how you get over the inability to delegate, because you actually end up relishing in the gifts that other people bring to you and your team.

How do you suggest people embrace AI, outsourcing, remote teams, and make the digital transformation to virtual assistants today?

First of all, we need to realize that AI is here, and it’s here to stay. I know that some people have a challenge with it, but we need to remember that whatever we have today is the worst it’s ever gonna be. It’s only gonna get better, faster, quicker, more thorough, more accurate, and we have got to jump on the bandwagon to learn how to leverage AI in the absolute best way to the benefit of our companies.

We have done that at Executive Help Now because we know the importance of it, and the impact that it is having on business today. So our remote teams are held together through our portals that we use to communicate with one another and with our clients as well. And we use AI to help us be more productive for our clients and for our clients’ clients, because our clients trust us with their clients, and we want to make sure that we are supporting them well.

For an employer or CEO to wrap their head around the idea of going virtual, it only adds to their bottom line, because they don’t have nearly as much overhead when they are working with virtual assistants, and they’ve got just as good a talent, if not more, because of the lack of borders and boundaries that limit having somebody come on site to a building. Now, if you want to hire somebody, you can go worldwide and get amazing talent.

Looking ahead, how do you see future executive leadership and virtual support, and what do you want the Renee Hastings legacy to be?

Looking ahead, I know that AI is going to continue to get better, and I know that productivity is going to continue to be king. That’s just all there is to it. When you’re in business, you have to produce. And if you are not producing, then you’re gonna get left behind, and eventually out of business, which nobody wants.

I definitely want everyone to know that the future is definitely AI. The future is definitely leveraging it and getting your team, making a team that is AI proficient. That is definitely the legacy that is going to be left by Executive Help Now. We are a global business, and we are definitely leveraging AI, and that support is only going to make us better and make you better when you add us as an extension of your team.