“She went from sales assistant to Vice President in less than 6 years.”

English Lesson: She went from sales assistant to Vice President in less than 6 years.

The vice president of your company rose to her position quickly. You are telling someone about it. You say this because you're impressed.

She went from sales assistant to Vice President in less than 6 years.

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(something) goes from (something) to (something)

This structure can be used for something that starts low and goes to a high position, or vice versa:

They went from playing dirty biker bars to selling out 20,000 seat arenas in just three years.

There are a few well-known idiomatic expressions that use this form, like:

  • "go from rags to riches" (poor to rich)
  • "go from zero to hero" (not respected to respected).

vice president

The job of "vice president" in a company is somewhere below president. Usually a company will have several vice presidents, each with their own area of specialization. For example, a company might have a "vice president of sales" and a "vice president of operations". In general, the order of positions in companies is:

  1. Chairman (The person who leads the Board of Directors of a company)
  2. C.E.O.
  3. C.F.O. (chief financial officer), C.T.O. (chief technology officer), C.O.O. (chief operations officer), etc.
  4. President
  5. Vice President
  6. Director (there might also be "Senior Directors", etc.
  7. Manager

Each company and industry is different, so some of these job titles might be higher or lower in a company than they are listed here. And there are also other terms that can be added to each position like:

  • Assistant ("Assistant Director", "Assistant Manager") - this indicates a lower position
  • Associate ("Associate Director", "Associate Coordinator") - this is usually a position higher than "assistant"
  • Executive ("Executive Vice President", "Executive Manager") - this indicates a higher position

sales assistant

"Sales Assistant" is a job title for someone who helps a salesperson. In the past, such an employee might have been called a "secretary". "Secretary" is not popular as a job title these days for various reasons.