to ask how do wealthy/famous people start to manage?

[talktalktalktalktalk]

I was idling wondering how people who are famous/wealthy - anyone really like JK Rowling, Michael Douglas, David Beckham, Meghan Markle -etc start to acquire their retinue.

So say for example, I'm guessing that there comes a point in the lives of these people where they have "people" who hire the other people for them? Who manages the whole set up and what happens if that top manager person leaves? What do they do themselves? How do they get there? Who decides what they need?

Take David Beckham for example but anyone of that ilk would do for the purposes of my question - as well as his agent (for negotiating deals, personal appearances etc), he probably has (I'm guessing) some sort of security/body guard for when he goes out in public - if not all the time; for each of the properties he owns - cleaners, maybe a housekeeper, a cook and so on; for personal appearances, a hair dresser and a makeup/powder person, a stylist and so on.

My guess is that he is not in charge of (a) deciding what he needs - eg. that a particular property needs 2 cleaners and a gardener rather than 1 cleaner and a poolboy for example or (b) hiring and firing any of these people. So who does it for him? What is that person's job title? Is it a single person over seeing the entire operation or different in different countries? How do you find that person?

And then between today and when he first starting playing football - how does it evolve? I suppose you start with an agent - who you have to choose and hire yourself.

But at what stage do you stop being the person worrying about where to advertise/ whether to use a recruitment agency/how to find a cleaner?

This is exercising my mind at the moment as I'm really struggling to help a friend who is a full time carer for her elderly parents find some basic domestic support - recommended cleaner and so on.

I'm wondering how wonderful it would be just to have some people to take care of it all and just never have to worry.

Anyone have any insights?

Personal assistant gets hired I imagine, and they then deal with all the other hiring & firing? Then they are organising everything from flights to who picks up the dry cleaning I suppose.

Household manager. Google it.

bespokebureau.com/blog/household-staff-guide/

I just had some dealings with a celeb and as far as I could see it went PA, housekeeper, I expect a gardener and a driver. Two houses country and town so I expect another housekeeper and gardener or landscaping service in the house I wasn’t in.

It was mad, she had a good tone and was polite but direct and just said ‘can I have lunch now?’ And five mins later LUNCH FOR HER JUST ARRIVED ON A LITTLE TRAY’.

i think you have to suspend all socialist style thoughts like ‘wait, why should this woman be in the kitchen making me lunch then mopping my floors’ etc, I assume they’re well paid and just get on with it. I would be crap at managing it all. Which is why then I think you get random ‘housekeeping managers’ and ordering people not to look at or speak to the employer.

Like maybe it’s better if you’re born with it or get all your money really young, if it happened to me now I would be all ‘Och no, sure you sit down, you’re knackered and I’ll get lunch myself, do you want some too while I’m at it’ etc.

A friend of mine is a PA to these types. She is basically the HR manager as well, and deals with all the recruiting of additional staff. She'll sort through CVs, which she generally gets through specialist agencies, then do the first stage interviews. Whether the principal (as they call the client) attends the second stage interview depends on how involved they like to be.

My mum was a PA for a famous person so I have some insight here. Although, to be clear, it varies massively. In general, it's no different from non-famous people. How do most people find their cleaner or gardener of dog walker? Usually it's through agencies and they're organised by their PA or HM. How it build up varies on need - how you became famous and the timescale. For example, David Beckham's rise to fame was much slower than Meghan Markle's (but her needs were met by the Royal Family).

From my understanding, my DM filed her employer's expenses, found/hired/fired/paid other staff (cleaners/gardeners/dog walkers/hairdressers/makeup artists/chefs/lawyers/etc), made restaurant bookings, liaised with their agents about work bookings and press... So, it would begin with hiring people as you need them and then you'd hire a PA when the logistics become unmanageable.

Thanks everyone - all very interesting.

I'm fascinated by this. I mean in terms of recruiting the PA/household manager top person - if they are responsible for hiring everyone else you have to be
damn sure they know what they are doing and are reliable (know the law about employment/hiring/firing etc)
and
totally trust their judgment.

I think I maybe too control freaky about it. I mean I wouldn't want someone working for me in any capacity - cleaner, gardener, PA etc - who I wasn't ultra confident that I trusted both to do the job to a good standard and generally (not to be an opportunistic thief/dishonest/sell your secrets to the tabloids via a leak even if you had an NDA) etc.

For the PA role, I'd really want someone I got on with so I don't see how you could outsource that recruitmnet or at least at the interview stage.

It can't be the case that no famous celebs/wealth people aren't a bit control freaky like me.

Do you think you just learn to unclench because you have to in order to have your five houses run properly?

In the US it’s normally a family office which manages everything on the personal side.

Tbh these are all reasons why I think being massively rich is massively overrated. I find owning just one house to be a total ball ache.

@TheLeadbetterLife yes I know what you mean. I'm not sure I'd ever feel really truly relaxed in my own home if I knew there were loads of random people notionally employed my me but who I didn't really know or have any idea about floating around my house.

Although having said that the idea of lunch just arriving on a tray in @Nepoyeah 's example does sound lovely.

But then I start thinking - well if you are going to have someone cook for you/produce food for you like that, then I'm guessing you aren't doing the shopping or planning the menus. Which in turn means the cook person would have to have a budget/access to money or a credit card to shop for you.

Which in turn means you need to make sure that

that person has a clean DBS check (which is difficult to do as an individual employer because you can't get one yourself for someone else)

you have appropriate processes in place for checking what they buy and are not defrauding you by secretly bunging in a bottle of vintage champage.

Which bring me back to my original question - how on earth do you find someone (the household manager or the PA) who you would trust to recruit properly to your standard and ensure that the right anti-fraud processes were in place.

Maybe I'm just not cut out for great wealth and staff but the whole thing just makes me anxious. I wish I could have someone to find me staff!

Well I won't go into details, but knowing what I know from my friend, I wouldn't trust anyone to handle my life in this way, for many of the reasons you suggest.

generally all the staff hired would have DBS through agencies. i would hate having staff in my home at all times, esp if i didnt know them well, i would need to be the one in control personallly lol

PAs for very wealthy/powerful/famous people can be in positions of incredible power. Depending on how wealthy and famous the person is and how many staff they have they can be the power behind the throne.

They could theoretically be in control of all of the celeb's personal health, financial, PR, domestic arrangements (with delegation obviously) and could do a vast amount of damage to them if they ever fell out.

I think a lot of famous people simply outsource the boring bits of their lives to various professionals - which is why you will hear of famous people be defrauded by their accountants or PAs taking stuff/shagging the husband. Out of sight out of mind.

On a much smaller scale, my boss is not famous at all but she is wealthy and extremely busy and her PA/EA does pretty much everything for her. She manages her work diary obviously but also:

• Pays school fees for her kids
• Arranges most of her kids' childcare and extra-curricular (music lessons/sport and playdates)
• Arranges all her travel (work and non work related)
• Plans parties for her
• Pays a lot of bills, both work domestic and has complete access to her bank account and credit cards
• Liaises with cleaners/Amazon delivery people
• Some household shopping
• Arranges medical appointments

This is very small scale as well so I imagine if you were dealing with someone like the Beckhams you would have a lot of power.

Aren’t there quite a few stories about celebs who got done over by one or more of their staff? For exactly the reason you say OP - too many people, too far removed from knowing what’s going out of what account etc.

I agree it would make me anxious. I think you’d have to be at the level of wealth where if someone’s scraping off £10k a year you won’t really notice and even if you find out, yeah it’s a pain and upsetting but it’s not really going to affect your life.

A lot have family offices - I have a friend who is a lawyer for a family office

poor JKR had money stolen from her by an assistant and there was a court case about it

There's an agency near me advertising for a £45K per annum "laundress" reporting into a household manager. Doing laundry, ironing, organising dry cleaning, bit of sewing. For £45000 a year. Did I mention 45K. For washing clothes. I imagine for that you are also washing towels and sheets daily as well but the advert made it seem there would be a maid actually changing the bedsheets for you to then wash and iron.

How rich/posh do you have to be that your housekeeper has a laundry maid who has a maid?

Indeed there are. Didn't Elton John get completely turned over by his accountant?

The thing is if you're that busy you simply can't stay on top of all this stuff without something collapsing.

I'm only barely on top of my own life admin and I'm neither rich nor famous. Imagine if in any given day you had to manage a media interview and a meeting with a politician, a Board meeting, a decision about your stock investments and then a ton of other work plus dealing with a six bedroom home and your kids' schooling, homework, clubs and social life. And shopping, paying bills, health and beauty treatments and all other shizzle that goes with life, famous otherwise. Even with a stay at home spouse it would just be too much.

If you’re very wealthy I’m sure you’re not going about in Joules and Zara with towels from Dunelm so for someone people £45k to manage and maintain all the designer gear and household linens is not all that unreasonable, proportionately speaking.

@CharlieCoCo
esp if i didnt know them well, i would need to be the one in control personallly lol

Yes THIS exactly

My guess is you probably work up to it. So you start all control freaky and just have a PA.
And then you get your second house in France. And still control freaky find the agency to look after it yourself.
Then you start looking at the third house in the USA and think actually it would be easier to have your own staff - and say to the PA - could you help me with this.

And then 10 years later you are more staffed up than Moses and being financially skimmed left right and centre but don't notice because £50k missing out of your $$$squazillions is easily concealed.