SmartPA : From Receptionist to Founder, Sarra Bejaoui's SmartPA Origin Story

In this video, SmartPA founder Sarra Bejaoui tells her own origin story — the career arc that led her to build the SmartPA partnership and the conviction about administrative and PA work that underpins the entire brand proposition. Bejaoui's first full-time job, straight from school at sixteen, was as a receptionist at a marketing agency. She names it as one of her favourite roles in her whole career — answering the phone, being the first voice and first point of contact for everyone calling the organisation, and quickly realising the impact that position had on the business. How calls were handled, how customers were greeted, how unhappy customers were handled — all of it shaped business outcomes. That early realisation became a thesis. As Bejaoui moved from reception into admin, PA work, and then project management, she kept hearing colleagues describe their own roles dismissively: "I'm only a PA, I'm just an admin, I'm just a secretary." Her response, on camera, is direct: that framing gets her absolute backup. The impact PAs and admin professionals make to businesses and to colleagues — at a professional and a human level — is incredible. That conviction — combined with her own personal study and a determination to be a spokesperson for the profession — drove the founding of SmartPA. The vision was to create an organisation that supports businesses to grow while supporting human beings (specifically women) to grow alongside them, and to amplify the impact and reputation of the PA and admin profession in business. A SmartPA partner inherits a brand built on a founder's conviction about the value the profession delivers.