What are the origins of the VA industry?
Staffcentrix co-founder Christine Durst is generally credited with having founded the VA industry in 1995, from her home in rural Connecticut. At that time, Chris was the CEO of MyStaff.com, which became one of the Internet’s most successful Virtual Assistant practices, with clients drawn from the first wave of businesses in North America and Australia migrating to the Web. During the operation of MyStaff, Chris received so many inquiries from would-be Virtual Assistants that she decided to open a company to train Virtual Assistants. Partnering with a client, former Wall Street attorney Michael Haaren, Chris co-founded Staffcentrix in 1999. Knowing that the young industry would need regulation and governance to grow properly over the long term, Durst and Haaren launched the nonprofit International Virtual Assistants Association (IVAA) simultaneously with Staffcentrix. IVAA, which Durst and Haaren turned over to its members shortly after its founding, has since grown to become the robus
