Crains New York - June 3, 2013 - (Page 26)

SOURCE Assistants take it personally COFFEE: ED SKYLER Continued from Page 25 Brooke Stone, TaskRabbit and PA for a Day, to name a few, are coming to market to meet the demand. “People are working 12 to 18 hours in their office, getting home late, and don’t have time to get groceries or buy gifts,” said Charell Star, who founded Manhattanbased PA for a Day in January 2012. Ms. Star got the idea for her company when she realized she was the perfect candidate. When she was an event planner, she spent 150 days a year on the road, only to come home to an empty fridge and a stack of unpaid bills. When she looked for someone to help, all she found were concierge services that charged $1,000 a month. For working moms Ms. Star now has 75 personal assistants working for her in New York and 15 in New Jersey, and she just launched in Washington, D.C. Her company, which charges $20 an hour with a two-hour minimum, has more than 100 bookings a week and is growing steadily. Brooke Stone started her business in late 2010 after working as a part-time personal assistant while pursuing a theater career. After performing in a number of grueling national Broadway tours, she decided to give up theater and focus full-time on personal assistance. Her Queens-based firm now has seven employees and 65 clients. Rates start at $45 an hour for basic errands and go up to $85 an hour for more sophisticated jobs like property management and largescale event planning. The majority of new clients are women with careers, many of whom have children, Ms. Stone said. “We work with people who are not in the high-net-worth category,” Ms. Stone said. “The majority of them are juggling the aspects of being a working mom.” Pam Allyn, president of nonprofit organization LitWorld, first hired Brooke Stone Lifestyle Management to help plan a work gala but soon started using the agency for her personal life as well. A year ‘We get calls from wives saying, “I need a wife” ’ ago, Ms. Allyn and her husband moved to Manhattan from Westchester and hired the company to handle the entire move, from setting up a new kitchen to select- MAKING A CAREER OF IT YOU WOULD THINK running other people’s errands would get tiring, but many people working as personal assistants really like the job. Jay Sauls (right), 30, started working for Brooke Stone Lifestyle Management a year ago and now has four regular clients. Though he’s trying to launch a singing career, he works as an assistant full-time and has no plans to stop. He has lost count of the number of closets he has organized— and he once helped a client clean out her garage—but Mr. Sauls enjoys knowing that he is helping people. He has also gotten to do some unique jobs, such as organizing a black-tie gala at a castle on the Hudson River, where he met the elite of Manhattan. “Our clients aren’t looking for someone to fetch them coffee,” he said. “They are looking for someone to bring support and ideas to their life.” Another personal assistant, Angela DeFillipps, says she is gaining meaningful career experience with the jobs she takes on. A former general manager at a Searle clothing store in Manhattan, Ms. DeFillipps, 34, started working as a personal assistant a year ago after returning from a stint living in London. One of Ms. DeFillipps’ clients has been building a home in Pennsylvania, a project Ms. DeFillipps has basically managed from start to finish. She also takes care of people’s second homes or runs their primary residences while they are living abroad. “With the houses and the property management, I am learning a lot,” she said. “I don’t say I am a personal assistant. I say I’m in lifestyle management.” —MIRIAM KREININ SOUCCAR 26 | Crain’s New York Business | June 3, 2013 by Annie Karni NEED A HAND? BROOKE STONE LIFESTYLE MANAGEMENT (917) 912-9206 www.brookestonelifestyle management.com THE CALENDAR GROUP (212) 744-2100 www.thecalendargroup.com PA FOR A DAY (212) 392-4948 www.paforaday.com ing curtains. She also used Ms. Stone’s company to plan her 50thbirthday party. “At first I felt almost embarrassed to have help,” Ms. Allyn admitted. “But now I feel liberated.” New lines of business The demand for inexpensive temporary help is even forcing more traditional staffing agencies to open new lines of business. The Calendar Group, a 10-year-old staffing firm with offices in New York City and Westport, Conn., built its business finding full-time help for wealthy clients. But in the past 18 months, it has been getting more and more calls looking for part-time help. Though it isn’t going the route of the hourly firms, the Calendar Group has started finding personal assistants for 20-hour-a-week positions. It is also considering starting a temp division to place employees on a project basis. “People need help creating photo albums, learning how to use apps, researching children’s camps and handling financial-aid forms,” said Steven Laitmon, founder of the Calendar Group. “Frequently we get calls from wives saying, ‘I need a wife.’ ” TaskRabbit hops forward TaskRabbit launched in Boston in 2008 and in New York in August 2011. The website and mobile app connect people in the same neighborhood who can pitch in and help each other. Now in nine cities, TaskRabbit has more than 11,000 members who have been vetted to work as personal assistants. People post a job they need done, and a TaskRabbit member can bid on it. Executives at the company, which has 65 employees and has raised $38 million in venture funding, declined to give numbers on its New York operation, only to say it is its fastest-growing city in terms of revenue and task count. A couple of weeks ago, the company launched TaskRabbit for Business, a special site targeted to small and midsize firms in need of temporary help. “Small businesses are our fastest-growing customer segment,” said Jamie Viggiano, head of marketing for TaskRabbit. Ⅲ City Hall vet brings Citi out of its shell E d Skyler, a longtime Bloomberg loyalist, joined Citigroup in 2010 as executive vice president for global public affairs. The communications position that includes government affairs was created for him based on his experience at City Hall, where he rose from press secretary to deputy mayor for operations, overseeing the police, sanitation and fire departments. His role at the bank has grown over the past three years to encompass branding, philanthropy and sponsorships. Mr. Skyler sat down with Crain’s last week as the bank’s latest public program—the now-ubiquitous blue Citi Bikes—hit the streets.The bikes are a prime example, he said, of how Citi has worked to change the perception of the bank since federal bailouts saved it from a Lehman Brothers-like demise. Why was your role created? During the [financial] crisis, some doubted whether the company would make it. It rightly turned inward while it restructured and returned to health. But I was hired because it was time to for the company to come out of its shell. There’s a time and way to engage with our different stakeholders, and we found the right balance. And what are you trying to accomplish? other things, we looked at the experience Barclays had in London [sponsoring a bike share],where they are known as “Barclays bikes.” Do you worry that some of the negative press about the bikes will have a negative impact on Citigroup? A little bit of controversy isn’t a bad thing. It means people are talking about it. Time will show it’s a successful program. Is Citi getting involved in the mayor’s race? We are very engaged with government and regularly host different elected officials for roundtable discussions on issues, aside from fundraisers. We have had Dean Skelos, Christine Quinn and Bill de Blasio come in recently. It is a crowded field, and people really want to meet the candidates so they can form their own opinions. WHERE THEY MET CITIGROUP HEADQUARTERS 399 Park Ave. AMBIENCE: Hardwood floors and art exhibits in the hallways lend Citi the gravitas of one of New York City’s oldest financial institutions. Mr. Skyler’s office has a glass wall that makes it bright. Would you ever consider running for office yourself? I found government incredibly rewarding, but running for office is another thing altogether, and I don’t see that in my future. The growth industry we hear about in the city right now is tech. Do you see finance as competing with tech here? We’re not looking to compete with the tech sector. They are clients, and we’re looking to support their growth. We can help take them public and provide strategic advice and banking services, whether it’s Facebook, WebMD, Seamless and the ones we haven’t heard of yet but will be talking about soon. One of the mandates has been to increase our visiWHAT THEY DRANK: bility in New York, the enⅢ Coffee from a tire U.S. and globally— nearby deli and to do it creatively. We Ⅲ Mr. Skyler had have about 20,000 people nothing to drink in New York City, which TOTAL: $2 makes us the secondlargest private employer [after JPMorgan Chase]. We’re the What else is Citi doing, in terms of largest employer in Queens. If you changing the perception that banks only thought about Citigroup a few years care about themselves? ago, you might not have experienced We have developed deeper relationour presence the way we thought you ships with the nonprofit community should for a company as big as we are so we aren’t just writing checks. We here. We have done a lot to fix that partnered with the Department of Education and the Public Library to since the crisis. launch the MyLibraryNYC initiaHow did Citi get involved with bike share? tive [which allows public-school stuThe Department of Transportation dents to order books online and have commissioner [ Janette Sadik- them delivered]. We sponsored the Khan] initially reached out to me. I U.S. Olympic team for the first time recommended the program to our last year and decided to continue our consumer-marketing team, and they partnership through the 2016 ultimately decided to do it. Among Games in Brazil. Ⅲ INSIDE TIP: Most Citigroup employees will not get a free Citi Bike membership. http://www.brookestonelifestylemanagement.com http://www.thecalendargroup.com http://www.paforaday.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crains New York - June 3, 2013

Crains New York - June 3, 2013
IN THE BOROUGHS
IN THE MARKETS
THE INSIDER
BUSINESS PEOPLE
REAL ESTATE DEALS
OPINION
GREG DAVID
FOR THE RECORD
TOP ENTREPRENEURS
CLASSIFIEDS
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
SOURCE COFFEE
OUT AND ABOUT
SNAPS

Crains New York - June 3, 2013