Featured VA – Jane Cattermole – Bay Tree VA, Suffolk, UK
Jane worked as a PA to senior management for 20 years before setting up Bay Tree VA in 2009. Since that time it has gone on to become a multi-VA, award-winning business. Working primarily from their home offices in East Anglia, the Bay Tree VA team of skilled, capable VAs and bookkeepers provide administrative and executive level assistance to small and medium sized companies.
In 2013 Bay Tree VA was listed as one of the East Anglian Daily Times’ Future 50, which highlights companies showing exceptional potential for growth. In 2014, Jane was awarded ‘VA of the Year – England’ by BeMyVA.
Jane is particularly keen to help growing businesses succeed. This is not only via the service Bay Tree VA provides, but through her involvement as a Board member of Menta – the Suffolk Enterprise Agency – and as a Committee member of Suffolk Institute of Directors (IoD).
In 2015 Jane devised and facilitated the launch of the successful ‘Expert Connections’ project. This joint initiative between Menta and Suffolk IoD is aimed at business owners who find themselves in uncharted waters regarding strategic/management issues and opportunities. Matched with Suffolk IoD members, the business owner then benefits from access to a ‘critical friend’, drawing on experience that provides a different perspective on a purely informal basis.
Jane is currently developing a ‘returners’ scheme to help those with suitable experience who have been out of the workforce for some time and who want to work as VAs.
