A female founded, independently run anti-agency; intentionally small, deeply experienced, and hands on by design.
A Letter from Masha.
Hi, I’m the lady in charge around here.
I stay directly involved in every client relationship and placement, approaching the work with loyalty, care, and a deep sense of responsibility to both clients and candidates.
I bring over seventeen years of hands on experience in private service, alongside a lifelong background in the arts. I was born into a multi-generational family of private service professionals, and grew up surrounded by this work, my mother a career housekeeper, my father a construction project manager, while also spending much of my life at the center of creative, performance driven environments. That dual exposure shaped how I understand discretion and visibility, structure and personality, and the balance between private life and public facing work. It’s a perspective formed from living inside these worlds, not observing them from a distance.
Over the years, through firsthand experience and ongoing conversations within the industry, I’ve seen a clear pattern emerge. Both highly capable private service professionals, and principals are often guided through recruitment processes by people who lack meaningful experience inside the environments they are staffing. That distance shows up as missed nuance, misaligned expectations, roles that are never clearly or realistically defined, and compliance gaps often overlooked.
The result is predictable; candidates set up to fail, principals left without their expectations properly met, and repeated searches driven by avoidable and expensive turnover. I built The Grocery Store x The Anti-Agency, because I don’t agree with that model.
This firm was created to support thoughtful recruitment and lifestyle solutions meant to last; grounded in real experience, clear communication, and respect.
Everything here runs through me, from start to finish. By my side is Sylvi Bell, my Kuvasz and the true heart of the office. She serves as Chief of Security and occasionally appears on Zoom calls, when she deems it necessary.
The Anti-Agency Approach
No Hand-offs: You work with me directly, not a junior assistant or someone who transitioned into staffing after one or two personal hires. I bring lifelong industry experience, and seventeen years of hands on professional private service depth to your search; staying directly involved from the first call to the final placement decision, with ongoing support well into the future.
Radical Candor: I am not a "yes person.” I value your long term results over a comfortable conversation. I will tell you the truth about what you need, even, and especially, when it’s not what you expected to hear.
Selectivity over Scale: I reject the high volume model. By keeping my roster intentionally small, I ensure your search receives the attention to detail required to deliver the results that you actually need.
Philanthropy at the Core: The wellbeing of private service professionals is inseparable from client outcomes. I approach this work with a commitment to improving the professional lives and working environments of the people who make households, offices and projects function. When staff are respected and supported, placements are stronger, tenures are longer; and clients receive the stability, security and long term outcomes they actually need.
Shall we?
So, why did you name it…
The Grocery Store?
I named this firm “The Grocery Store” for a few reasons, all of them personal, all of them layered.
For a long time, the only place I was allowed to go was to the grocery store in Oakland, California. I was subjected to domestic labor trafficking in a home in that area, and the family would not allow me to leave the home unless it was to get groceries. Being at the market, felt almost normal, even when nothing else was. I remember how sweet the smell was in the spice section, and the beautiful selection of little dishes. It was a place where people moved freely, chose what they needed, and went on with their lives. That stayed with me.
There’s also a deep history tied into the name. Domestic labor and agricultural labor are inseparable in our nation’s history. Even if we don’t always acknowledge it, we are connected. The people who grow, harvest, stock, and prepare food, are part of the same continuum of work that sustains all of us. The grocery store, holds that connection in plain sight.
And then there was a moment over the holidays this last year, just before taking the plunge to start the firm. I saw Anwar Hadid at the grocery store in Studio City. Yes, the model, doing his shopping, like the normal human that he is. I remember thinking as I walked by him: what a sweetie, he probably gave his personal assistant the week off, and is doing this himself so they can enjoy the holidays with family. It was over Christmas time. I hope that every client I meet is lovely enough to occasionally grab their own supplies from the market, to make sure that their staff has rest with family. Or, alternatively, that they just get extra staff to make sure that they always have backup!
A grocery store is so simple in its promise. It has everything you need. Not everything you want necessarily, but what you actually need. There’s something honest about that. It is such an ordinary place, yet it acts as a coming together point for everyone, from every background, everyday. It’s a place of togetherness, however passing it might be, to get what you need, and hopefully, plenty of what you want as well.
So, the name is literal, but it is also a memory, a reclamation, a statement, and a reminder. A place where survival, dignity, hard work, quality ingredients, and community quietly meet.
You Ready?
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