Karen van Zyl is the founder and CEO of VAConnect, and has been placing virtual assistants across four continents since 2008.
She started Lime Tree Consulting in 2008, placing virtual assistants and building the operational foundations of the business. In 2014 she rebranded it as VA Connect and moved from placement to end-to-end management: recruitment, training, quality and retention.
Her passion for systems and processes that actually work, combined with a love for sales and marketing, shaped VAConnect’s managed model. In 2020 she launched VAJobs.co.za, a talent portal for sourcing and pre-vetting South African VA talent, and VAVarsity.co.za, an upskilling academy with real-world skills testing. In 2022 she introduced Atomic Energy and VAPIness, the anti-burnout and two-way happiness accountability frameworks behind the company’s retention.
Karen takes the first strategy call personally. Her job, in her words, is “to be the catalyst entrepreneurs need to grow and succeed in business and life.” Or, as she puts it: “I don’t want to be the biggest VA company. I want to be the one where nobody leaves — not the clients, and not the VAs.”
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