Paula Isbell
Harlow,Essex
Summary
Dedicated professional with strong organisational skills and attention to detail. Effective at managing multiple priorities and ensuring deadlines are met. Known for maintaining confidentiality and supporting team engagement through effective communication and collaboration.
Overview
40
40
years of professional experience
5
5
years of post-secondary education
Work history
PA To VP Operations/VP Finance/VP IT
DHL
Various site locations
1987.08 - 2025.12
- Prioritised tasks to support productivity improvements.
- Maintained confidentiality of sensitive information by enforcing strict file management systems.
- Ensure health and safety remains number 1 priority on all meeting agendas
- Note-taking at financial reviews, management meetings and employee forums.
- Arrange team activities & customer events for DHL, customer & supply chain contractors. Including direct communication and issuing of invites, ensuring business needs are met and costs are within budget
- Managing holiday requests
- Completion of expense and mileage reports, including corporate credit cards, for multiple Team members, ensuring these are completed on time and are policy compliant.
- Extensive diary management ensuring no conflicts, prioritising appointments & challenging/influencing diary requests
- Respond to challenging and changing priorities with urgency and pace
- Prioritise emails effectively.
- Support wider team engagement agenda, including sending out communication, sharing of material and relevant documents, managing MS Teams pages and supporting in organising engagement events
- Manage team actions taken from meetings, ensuring deadlines are met and updates are provided.
- Organise team meetings & site visits - producing agenda, arranging travel & accommodation and hospitality
Receptionist
JJ Sullivan & Son
Tottenham, London
1985.08 - 1987.08
- Managed mail distribution process ensuring correspondence reached departments promptly.
- Acted as first point of contact for guests, delivering friendly greetings and support upon arrival.
- Handled multi-line telephone system to efficiently manage incoming calls for over 30 staff.
- Supported administrative tasks enhancing overall office functionality.
Education
GCSEs -
Kingsmead Secondary School
Enfield 1978.09 - 1983.06
Skills
- Attention to detail
- Organizational skills
- Multitasking ability
- Adaptability to priorities
- Deadline management
- Pressure resilience
- Integrity and confidentiality
- Professional Approach
- Flexibility and approachability
- Strong communication skills
- Telephone etiquette
- Customer service focus
- Team collaboration
- Relationship building
Affiliations
- Spending time with my Grandchildren
- Dog walking
- Holidays in the sun
Accomplishments
During my time at DHL, I won a Gold Award as I was part of our CSR Team and between us we organised our first family fun day for colleagues & their families. This resulted in over 500 attendees including a competition of 11 rafts across our Division, along with other team based activities, children's games & refreshments. This involved planning & execution of detailed HSE assessments/insurance etc & pulling on experts within the company. It was a great team effort and I throughly enjoyed it.
References
References available upon request.
Timeline
PA To VP Operations/VP Finance/VP IT
DHL
1987.08 - 2025.12
Receptionist
JJ Sullivan & Son
1985.08 - 1987.08
GCSEs -
Kingsmead Secondary School
1978.09 - 1983.06