Miss Jones goes online to help hard-pressed PAs

Here's another woman with a booming online business.

Miss Jones is a support network for Britain's top-level, executive PAs, offering them an instant route to the best hotels, restaurants and gifts for their over-worked bosses.

Behind Miss Jones is Henrietta MacEwen, a personal assistant herself for 13 years, most recently at Metro newspaper, who set up the online business because she saw a gap to make life easier for secretaries who have "so much to do and so little time".

More than 1,500 PAs are signed up to the site for the services, and Miss Jones gets up to 10,000 hits a day, mainly by word of mouth. Miss Jones works with more than 100 brands – such as Anya Hindmarch, Fortnum & Mason, the Dorchester and Tom's Kitchen, which offer reduced rates and discounts of up to 20 per cent.

As MacEwen says: "These secretaries are powerful – they have influence over where their bosses sleep, eat and shop, and so companies are keen to sign up."