About VTVA
How I became a Virtual Assistant?
Having worked as a research secretary in a Scottish university for over 10 years, in 2008 I returned to my home county of Cheshire and set up VTVA.
I started working, mainly, for academics and research students, all my work coming word-of-mouth via the network I had developed while working in Glasgow. This rapidly developed, as networks do, and clients have since come to me from across the globe.
Having built a reputation for accuracy, reliability and dealing with global accents, I started to outstretch my working capacity and so, in 2009, I began looking for associates to work with me. This proved to be a steep learning curve as not all providers have the same work ethic and eye for quality. As a consequence, I concentrated on building a small but phenomenal team of home-language-speaking associates.
We have gone from strength-to-strength ever since and have developed relationships with many academics, students, businesses and medical consultants.
A Virtual Assistant is used only when required and, unlike temporary employees, guarantees you a personal, reliable, efficient service without the burden associated with hiring temps or employing staff.
“Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me… Anything can happen, child. Anything can be”
VTVA Associates
Pam Wyatt
I have been working for nearly eight years as an audio transcriptionist and have been part of Val's team for most of this. It is a great group to work with and really helped me expand my career in this field. Before taking this path I worked at Southampton University Library for many years.
When my husband and I decided to take on the adventure of moving to Portugal, and subsequently to France, I decided to use my skills to start working remotely as a transcriptionist. I love the work and its variety, it's amazing how many different subjects we get to transcribe and no day is ever the same.
Amy Zefin
I began working in the audio transcription field six years ago whilst on maternity leave with my first child. Upon returning to my then full time role as a retail manager, a field I spent six years in, I continued to transcribe on a freelance basis most evenings.
I joined Val's team four years ago and have continued to transcribe around my current full time role in the finance sector, as well as around my family. I'm exceptionally lucky to have a fantastic support network that enables me to be a working parent and to work the hours I do. I enjoy transcribing as I learn so much about new subjects that I would otherwise never have been exposed to and I count myself very lucky to have entered into this field.
Caroline Jones
I've been a freelance transcriber since 2007 and started working with Val in 2016. I live in a remote part of the Highlands and transcription gives me fantastic flexibility to work around looking after the menagerie (currently two dogs, three horses, 18 sheep and a husband) and my other self-employed job of renovating long-term-empty houses and running them as holiday cottages.
In what can sometimes be quite an isolated existence, it's fantastic to have a stream of voices through my headphones from all round the world talking about such varied and interesting topics on a daily basis.