Chief of Staff Administration, Executive Assistant to CEO Craig Bouchard
Her title may be chief of staff administration for Braidy Industries and executive assistant to Craig Bouchard, but one can hardly put a label on the expertise of Julie Kavanaugh.
Resourceful is the best description of the 30-year veteran to the unique field of high-level executive assistants where she’s attained an invaluable skill set of “how to make things happen.” Her secret lies in her unbelievable contact list and tenacious attention to detail.
She reveals her Houdini-like skills relaying a past request by Craig Bouchard. “Executive is what we call them in my field. So it’s a Friday evening and my executive says he wants to see Donald Trump at one of his pre-election town hall meetings in Fort Myers, Flordia. The meeting is Monday but he doesn’t want to wait in long lines and a crowd is expected. Oh yes, he also wants to take his entire family,” Kavanaugh explained. “So I just think about it for a while. Who do I know that can make this happen?” She reaches out to a fellow executive assistant close to the Trump family. By Saturday, she has a call needing the names and social security numbers of the Bouchard family for secret service clearance.
“They ended up with their own private entrance to the town hall meeting and were backstage with him (Trump) and had a great time.”
This kind of access is what makes Kavanaugh a mover and shaker and an impressive part of the Braidy team. There’s no challenge too big or too small. “There’s usually no lead time whatsoever,” she said. “You get presented with things like Craig traveling to Japan and Taiwan and some potential meetings come up. In the Taiwanese culture, you have to go through the President of Taiwan’s office to get these requests for meetings.” For this she leaned on another associate and former executive assistant to Bill Gates and Hillary Clinton. “Long story short, Craig got his meetings.”
“When you start working on the international side, you have to learn their customs; like recently a gentleman from Japan presented me a business card with both hands and I remembered I was supposed to accept it with both hands.”
Those cards are important in her line of work. Kavanaugh said you learn to hang on to every business card you receive. You just never know when that person can link you to someone or something you need.
The last time she recalls being somewhat stumped was when Bouchard called her and wanted to send a copy of his children’s book “The Adventures of Ai” to Malala, the Pakistani girl shot and nearly killed by the Taliban who headlined news in 2012. “I’m at a conference when I get this email when I wake up and check my phone. I just lay there thinking I don’t even know where to start. Then it hit me, one of the attendees of the conference is the co-founder of priceline.com and a U.S. ambassador. Malala now has a copy of the book.”
When she worked for the pro hockey Chicago Blackhawks team, she handled everything from players' contracts to immigration, to travel, to special events, to the Olympics. “During the Olympics, I had a very elite player in the games. He had a girlfriend coming to visit from Europe. I had decided to take some time for myself and go see my sister in California since everyone was gone for the Olympics. I get a call from the girlfriend at O’Hare and she was red flagged. She wasn’t cooperating very well, crying, and she flew with her dog.” She admits this one took some work, but luckily, she had a contact at O’Hare that worked in immigration and was able to get both into the country.
Being a networker like Kavanaugh, it seems natural she would be big city. She is from the greater Chicago area, but touts being from a rural Illinois town of less than 2,500 where she and her high school sweetheart Mick grew up and still have a home for sale. “This is our first move. It’s been great because we came from a small town and culture, and people are extremely nice.”
Kavanaugh was one of the first Braidy employees to arrive and oversaw the whole remodel of the downtown office on the third floor of the Community Trust Bank building. She will hire all the administrative staff required for Braidy.
“I think everybody on the Braidy team realizes the impact that it is creating just by talking to people and even seeing tears in people’s eyes.” She said they speculate what the area will look like in two to three years and its footprint, such as simply passing people on the street and wondering if they will be working for Braidy one day.