Strategic Executive Support — across languages, cultures, and borders
Too curious to sit still. Hyperactive learner. Strategic questioner.
The practice
Whims & Words is a fractional executive support practice founded by Linda Zagorskaya — strategist, project manager, and multilingual communicator fluent in English, French, and Russian.
For over twenty years, I have navigated complexity for a living. I directed architectural firms, managed construction projects with budgets up to $10 million, represented high-net-worth clients across borders, and coordinated teams of up to a hundred people — in three languages, often simultaneously.
Then I went back to university, earned a master’s degree, and spent two years interpreting for families displaced by war. Because I never stop learning, and I never stop being curious about the next problem that needs solving.
What I offer is simple: give me a problem, and I will ask the right questions, see the full picture, find the right people, and make it happen. Whether the problem is a multilingual legal matter, a family relocation, an international project with twelve stakeholders, or a decision that needs a clear-eyed memo with pros and cons — the method is the same.
What I do
Your fractional right hand. I work alongside CEOs, founders, and principals who need more than an assistant — they need someone who thinks ahead, sees the full picture, and handles complexity with discretion.
That means understanding what you actually need before you’ve finished explaining it. Serving as a firewall so you can focus on what only you can do. Writing the memo that clarifies the decision. Managing the project that doesn’t fit anyone else’s job description. Handling the sensitive conversation that requires judgment, not just execution.
I spent over a decade doing exactly this in architectural firms — sitting between clients, lawyers, engineers, and contractors, in three languages, making sure everything moved forward and nothing fell through the cracks. The industry has changed. The skill set hasn’t.
For law firms, family offices, and professional services firms with French- or Russian-speaking clients. I become the bridge between your firm and the client — not just translating words, but translating expectations, cultural context, and the things that get lost when people assume they understand each other.
This is project-based work. When you land an international client with a complex matter that crosses languages and jurisdictions, I step in. I manage the client relationship, coordinate multilingual documentation, and ensure that nothing gets lost between your expertise and their understanding.
Complex projects with multiple stakeholders, multiple languages, and no room for miscommunication. I coordinate, I translate, I make sure everyone is working toward the same goal — and I ask the uncomfortable questions early, before they become expensive problems.
For ten years, I ran building sites. Weekly meetings with architects, engineers, contractors, and designers. Boots on the ground, hard hat on. A woman in a male-dominated world. I was always respected — because I was humble enough to ask questions and learn from the experts around me, and firm enough to hold the line when quality, decisions, and deadlines needed to be respected.
That approach works in any industry. Construction, legal, corporate, creative — the method is the same: understand the problem, coordinate the people, deliver the result.
The personal side of executive support. When a family relocates to a new country, when children need the right school, when a personal project needs the same rigor as a professional one — I handle it the way I handle everything else: understand the need, find the right people, manage the execution.
With seven children in a blended family — all grown up now — I have navigated school systems across countries, advocated for children with dyslexia, ADHD, and high intellectual potential, and learned that the most important skill in education is knowing when the standard answer isn’t good enough. I don’t pretend to be a specialist in any single system. I know how to ask deeper questions than the checklist provides — and how to find the people who have the real answers.
Relocations, education, travel planning, finding the right specialists for any personal challenge — it’s all a project. And I manage projects.
Selective, by inquiry. I translate literature because it is the most demanding and rewarding form of working with words. A novel is not a document — it is a voice, a rhythm, a world. Translating it means understanding not just what the author wrote, but what they meant, what they heard, and what they left unsaid.
I work in close collaboration with the author whenever possible. The conversation between translator and writer is where the best translations are born — in the space between two languages, where both voices learn something new.
Language pairs: Russian ↔ English, French → English, French → Russian.
How I work
I never start with the given problem. I start by understanding the full situation — the context, the constraints, the stakeholders, the things nobody mentioned because they assumed everyone already knew. The best solutions come from seeing what others overlook.
I ask the questions that move things forward — especially the ones that feel uncomfortable. In twenty years of managing complex projects, I’ve learned that the question nobody wants to ask in the meeting is usually the one that saves the project three months later.
Over two decades of working with high-net-worth individuals, politically exposed persons, and sensitive personal situations. Confidentiality is not a policy I follow — it is how I operate. Trust is the foundation of every relationship I build.
I went back to university after 40 and earned a master’s degree while working and raising children. I take courses constantly. I read voraciously. If your office uses a system I haven’t seen, I’ll learn it. If your industry has a language of its own, I’ll speak it. Curiosity is not a personality trait — it’s a professional skill.
Remote-first, but present when it matters. Deadlines, travel, extra hours — I adapt to what the project needs.
Multilingual
The person behind the practice
Born in Russia. Studied and worked in New York. Spent twenty-seven years in Switzerland — founding and directing two architectural firms, managing luxury construction projects for international clients, and building a career where languages, cultural fluency, and the ability to manage complexity were not separate skills but one and the same.
Then I went back to school. A BA in English, then an MA in English and Literary Translation at the University of Lausanne — earned while working, teaching, and raising a blended family of seven children, now all grown. I also hold a BA in Political Science from Webster University Geneva, and professional certifications in community interpreting from both Switzerland and Canada.
After completing my master’s, I spent two years as an interpreter working with Ukrainian families displaced by war — the most humbling and meaningful work I have ever done. It taught me something no degree can: that words, when they land right, can change a life.
Now based between Colorado and New York City, I founded Whims & Words to bring together everything I have learned across three countries, three languages, and a career that has never followed a straight line. Which, as it turns out, is exactly the kind of career that prepares you for anything a client might need.
The full story is on my personal site.
Give me a problem. I’ll ask the right questions,
see the full picture, and make it happen.
Get in touch
Whether it’s a complex project, a multilingual challenge, or a situation that needs someone who thinks before they act — I’d love to hear from you.
linda@whimsandwords.com