Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Katie Santoro. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Katie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

In 2019 I left my career with extreme burnout and was running a yoga studio that I had opened 2 years prior. When the pandemic started, I had to shutter my business and began considering going back to my career. At the urging of my husband, I began freelancing as a virtual assistant as a way to make money. At the same time, I was seeing my friends leave the workforce or not return due to the constraints of childcare. The pandemic was driving parents out of the workforce, and most of those parents were women. I also saw this as an opportunity to create flexibility in my own life as I considered how I was going to help my aging parents. My mission quickly became to keep care-takers in the workforce. Now, we hire people in the “resume gap” years, help them learn new skills, and keep old skills fresh so that if they ever decide to return to a regular 9-5 they have the experience to do so. We are currently a team of 17, each of whom needed the flexibility to take care of their families but still had a desire or need to be in the workforce.

Katie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My career prior to this was in the legal and insurance industries. I began as a legal assistant/paralegal where I really honed my administrative and process skills. I made a move into the insurance industry where I basically project-managed matters from the first notice through to resolution. I also learned a ton about marketing and sales while running my yoga studio. My business partner and I have a combined 30 years of experience in the legal/insurance fields and we use our knowledge to help train and support our team members to be efficient assistants.

Being an administrative assistant is not rocket science, but it does take a diverse skill set to manage all of the tasks thrown at you, especially with the huge role that technology plays. When I started my career we would mentor under one of the senior administrative assistants to learn skill sets, problem solve, and just have someone to go to for support. In the virtual world, you can’t pop next door to ask your mentor how to do something but that support is still needed. I saw this as an opportunity to differentiate ourselves from other virtual assisting agencies.

Of all the things we have done with this business, our mentorship and training program is what I am the most proud of. We provide each team member with 3 months of mentorship and a ton of training materials. We encourage our whole team to work together to teach each other new skills and problem-solve their issues, and we provide ongoing training to teach them new skills as the digital landscape evolves (AI is our favorite right now). This puts us in a really unique position with our clients; not only are they matched with one great assistant, but they also get the experience of the entire team behind that assistant. We also employ all of our assistants and offer paid time off and benefits. This creates reliability and consistency in our team which our clients benefit from as well.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

This whole business is a career and life pivot. Leaving my career was a huge leap, and I originally thought I would be teaching yoga and traveling for training and retreats. When the pandemic began, freelancing as a virtual assistant was my unexpected pandemic pivot. I needed to pay rent for the yoga studio space, but I knew I couldn’t go back to my career so soon after recovering from burnout. As this business grew I put a high emphasis on boundaries and balance so that I could have a career that I loved and a life worth living. I am grateful every day that not only was I able to find a place of balance for myself, but I was able to share it with my team. When I look at who I was in my career vs. who I am now, I am much more healthy physically, emotionally, and spiritually, I have strengthed relationships that were neglected, and have made so many new friends along the way. I’m a better person for it.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

We have known each other for over 30 years. We grew up in the same neighborhood and went to school together. We were roommates for two years in college and we even owned a dog together. I recruited her to the first law firm that I worked at and we worked together for 5 years at two different firms. She moved to Texas and started a family and continued her career as a paralegal. I stayed in Richmond and moved into the insurance field. About a year into owning this business she called me to ask if she could work for me. She was one of the parents who was suffering hard from the strain of the pandemic. She has 4 children, two of whom were about a year old at the time, and she was facing major life transitions. Suffice it to say, she had hit burnout and needed to make a change. Her timing was amazing because I was just starting to see the potential to scale and I didn’t want to do it alone, so I somehow convinced her to leave her job and run the company with me. We make great partners. We have the depth of trust that can only be found in someone you have been through real life with, and we have very similar ideas about money and budgeting. She tempers my lofty ideas and I soften her rule-following nature. Together we have been able to create our own way of running a business that feels good for both of us.

Contact Info:

• Website: rivercity-va.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiesantoro/

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