This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Erica Jackowitz, who runs the New York and Aspen-based lifestyle management company Roman & Erica alongside her husband, Roman Chiporukha. This story has been edited for length and clarity.
As a lifestyle management company, we handle all facets of our clients’ leisure, including their travels, homes, yachts, planes, cars, and social events.
If it relates to their leisure at all, we handle it, whether it’s traveling for their kids’ hockey tournament, throwing a dinner party at home, or a vacation to the Arctic.
We’re essentially a personal assistant to all things leisure. Our clients pay upward of $150,000 a year and have access to Roman and me directly, 24/7. We represent about 10-12 families at a time. We have to keep it super exclusive and limited so I can make sure I can answer a client’s call at 8 p.m. on a Saturday night. Our ethos is always so that clients feel like they’re the only one.
We have really deep connections with our clients and really try to understand who they are and what their needs are. I know what they want for their children’s birthday party, how they want to have dinner, and what they should order. I know who will deliver the best flowers and how to send unique, customized gifts to their friends and family, and how to manage their miles.
What we offer is better allocation of resources. Instead of a client spending seven hours trying to figure out what they should do and where they should eat in Paris, we do it for them. They’re running major companies, and they’re busy people. We also advocate for them. Unlike a traditional travel agent whose bottom line is based on commission, we’re salary-based.
We are there to help people style their own lives and make it seamless, so at the end of the day, they can show up to the lives they’ve built and not have to spend the time planning.
Everyday is different
I’ll have a list of all the things I need to achieve the next day, and by the time I open my eyes in the morning, that list is usually not what transpires. That’s what I love about what I do.
Right now, the Knicks have really taken over our phone, with people calling to adjust their travel itineraries to be here in New York for this moment. Last week, a client had a four-hour delay at JFK, which meant he was going to miss the private plane that was meeting him in Southeast Asia. Reallocating all those logistics kept me up all night. This morning, I got a call from a client who wants me to plan a “Back to New York” party in September for their friends and family when everyone returns from their summers away from the city.
One of the most unique requests I got was last year. I was at a party in Capri, and I got a phone call from a client whose friends were stuck in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea on a yacht with a group of people they were not comfortable with. The client called and said, “Save my friends. Get them off this boat.” We sent a helicopter out there and got them off the boat. It was bananas. We actually refer to it today with the client as the rescue mission.
A lot of requests are more related to daily life, like a last-minute dinner reservation at a hot restaurant in another city. I’ve rented full carnivals for clients just for “Sunday fun day,” with water slides, slip-and-slides, bouncy houses, as well as pizza, taco, and candy trucks.
You need to have the resources to make all that happen, and we do. Our clients are used to on-demand services whenever they want and however they want.
I love solving hard problems
I’m actually a lawyer by education, but as a child I was one of those people that if someone told me something was impossible, doing it was my adrenaline rush. It was my high. I’d be like, ‘Well, I’m going to make that happen.” If someone told me something was sold out, I would find a way to source it even if I didn’t need it.
What I do for a living is an extension of my own lifestyle and my passion for travel, restaurants, and good food. I don’t have a boundary between what is my lifestyle and what is my work because they blend with everything I do.
Friends and family say to me all the time, “Erica, you’re never not working.” I say, “Well, this is my lifestyle, so there’s no separation between my work and my actual life.” I was just smart enough to turn my passion in this lifetime into my career.
We spend the summer in Europe because that’s where the bulk of our clients spend their summers, so it’s easier for us to be onsite in the time zone. I just turn a hotel cabana into my office.
Ten years ago, I dreamed about that being the case, but in the past couple of years it’s been actualized. It’s incredible to be able to actually say, “I live in Europe over the summers, and that’s part of my job.”
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