We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kristin Richardson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kristin below.

Kristin, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

My overall mission for Sherah has always been to provide more support to women so that we keep more women in the workforce, keep them moving up the ladder to leadership positions, and ultimately to achieve gender parity and equality, especially at the C-suite level. That gets hard when women become mothers because even in 2024, women still take on an unfair share of the responsibilities at home in combination with the gender wage gap at work. In order to prevent working mothers from stalling in their careers or leaving the workforce altogether when they don’t want to, I knew first-hand the need for a solution that would provide tangible daily support to alleviate the stress and pressure mothers feel juggling a career, family and running a household.

While virtual assistant companies are growing and becoming more common, Sherah uses local U.S.-based moms on the ground, unlike others who use overseas support and tend to have people who have never run a family or had their own. Plus since our assistants are local, we also provide in-person support and we are growing that option quickly across the U.S.

The US Surgeon General issued an advisory back in August on the mental health and well-being of parents, highlighting the urgent need to better support parents, caregivers, and families to help our communities thrive. Being a parent, especially a parent who works outside the home, can present a lot of challenges and stress, ultimately having a harmful effect on our mental health, which in turn affects everything in our life including our ability to perform at work and our relationships with our children. I know first-hand that offering this kind of service to mothers who need help with their to-do lists will immediately make them feel like a weight has been lifted off their shoulders, and they can focus on the more important things like being present for their family and thriving in their careers.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Kristin Richardson and I’m the founder of Sherah, an innovative personal assistant service revolutionizing the way modern, busy women and families run their household. I’m a mom to two daughters and after 26 years in corporate America, I quit my job in 2022 as the Chief Sales and Marketing Officer of a healthcare company, with hopes to prevent other women from quitting theirs. Today, Sherah supports busy women and families around the country to keep their households running more smoothly, thanks to a team of on-demand assistants — who are all moms too — ready to jump in whenever and wherever busy families need help. From registering for sports and weekly meal planning, to finding babysitters and booking doctor appointments — if a mom needs it done, then Sherah gets it done.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

That working hard to the point of exhaustion gets you further in life. As a Gen-Xer raised by a single mom, I was raised to do it all and to do it all by myself. I worked throughout high school and college, was always the last one to leave the office, and even got married and had children later in life because I was so focused on work. While it served me well and got me to climb the corporate ladder in my 26-year career in marketing, I now know that it’s not what is going to get me through being a working mother and now business owner. It’s also not healthy, mentally or physically.

It took my dad dying this past year for me to finally set better boundaries. He died at age 78 and he worked around the clock until he was 77 having little time for hobbies or family. After seeing him pass away only a year after closing down his carpet store he’d owned for decades, I knew something in my life had to change and I had to start setting those boundaries for myself, because no one else will. It’s never in another person’s best interests to set your boundaries for you. You have to do it.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I white-knuckled and worked unbelievably hard for 28 years to get where I did in my career and to achieve my dreams in work, motherhood, and life. From being the first and only woman, and the youngest on executive teams at several companies. I was the first and only woman to go through pregnancy, pumping, and raising children while on those leadership teams, and then being a mother during a pandemic where kids were Zoom schooling for a year and a half while I was CMO at a healthcare company. I thought I could do it all. But looking back, I did it the wrong way. I often did it struggling in silence as the first and only in those situations afraid to speak up and say I needed more support. Afraid to set boundaries at work or on myself for fear of failure. But failure at what? At whose expectations and judgments? At 50, I can now say yes I’m resilient, but that shouldn’t be the only goal. Resilience alone leads to immense burnout and isn’t sustainable. As a mom, we hear a lot today about younger generations not having resilience. But I fear my fellow Gen-Xers place too much focus on resilience and self-reliance. We have to find moderation and balance in order to find a sustainable pace and lifestyle, and we have to come together in community to ask for help when we need it and be there for others when they need it. That’s why Sherah is a community of women supporting women.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mysherah.com
• Instagram: @mysherah
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MySherah
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kprich/