Meghan Grimm may be Hollywood’s greatest matchmaker.
Along with being Jennifer Lawrence’s govt private assistant, Grimm is the founder and CEO of Clyde Staffing, a first-of-its-kind staffing company led by a seasoned private assistant that’s devoted to vetting and matching potential assistants with prime expertise. However in contrast to different companies, the place the extent of their involvement could finish after the location, Grimm prides herself on offering her community of assistants with continued help — whether or not that’s via hands-on coaching or within the type of a gaggle Slack, the place assistants within the community can attain out to 1 one other for tips about issues like nabbing reservations at Nobu, accompanying A-listers on high-profile press excursions and discovering contacts for the most effective florists in New York.
Since quietly launching in 2020, Clyde’s purchasers have included Anne Hathaway, Brian Tyree Henry, Uma Thurman, Dakota Johnson, Benicio del Toro, Finneas O’Connell, Mandy Moore and Tommy Dorfman, in addition to company purchasers like Lighthouse Administration and Media and Untitled Leisure. Henry, who most lately appeared alongside Lawrence in Apple TV+’s Causeway, is fast to sing Clyde’s praises: “You’re getting top-tier consideration based mostly on precisely what you want and even the stuff you didn’t know you wanted,” the actor tells THR over e mail. “Meghan does her job with a lot care and finesse you can completely belief that anybody she sends your approach will do the identical. … I’m very grateful to Meghan for making my expertise a dream.”
To attach with Clyde, previous purchasers have reached out to Grimm and even DM’d the @clydestaffing Instagram account to make the request (e.g., “Please discover me an assistant who will stick with me for 2 to 3 years after which I’m pleased to advertise them inside my manufacturing firm” or “Please discover me a profession assistant”). Grimm will then join with the consumer or their crew to determine their priorities and desires.
Going again to the @clydestaffing account, Grimm will usually publish about open roles on Monday mornings, ensuring to maintain particulars in regards to the consumer confidential: “Male actor searching for assistant in LA” or “Feminine actress in NYC wants a brand new PA.” From there, Grimm — with help from her 4 interns — will undergo resumes, which might be submitted via Clyde’s web site or by way of e mail, examine references and slim down the pool to search out doable matches. Potential assistant candidates may also fill out questionnaires that assist Clyde decide character and match with questions like “What are you searching for? The place’d you develop up? Do you might have siblings? What are your targets?”
After which come the rounds of interviews, the place Grimm will personally hop on a Zoom name or sit down with a candidate and look out for inexperienced and purple flags, as she describes them. “If somebody tells me that they grew up nannying, that could be a inexperienced flag for me as a result of that individual already is aware of how you can be built-in into somebody’s household. They know the significance of household time. They know when to be seen however invisible,” Grimm says. “That’s nearly higher for me than somebody with a standard company background as a result of being a private assistant is such an intimate job.”
Relying on the consumer, the main candidate will then be interviewed by somebody on the consumer’s crew (like a former assistant, supervisor or publicist) earlier than reaching the expertise. Generally, the consumer might be pleased to hop on a FaceTime immediately with the possible assistant, which additionally helps the interviewee get a way of how formal or informal their potential new boss could also be.
Your complete vetting and placement course of via Clyde usually takes between one to 2 months. Grimm says there are not any upfront charges; as an alternative, purchasers can pay Clyde a one-time charge amounting to twenty p.c of the assistant’s yearly wage. The charge is refundable inside 90 days if a placement doesn’t work out and, in that case, Clyde will search for a brand new assistant.
Grimm says her background as a private assistant permits her to determine who will and received’t succeed as an assistant, giving her a leg up from different conventional recruiting or staffing companies the place the interviewer doubtless has by no means finished the assistant job themselves. And on the coronary heart of Clyde is Grimm’s private {and professional} community throughout L.A. and New York, which she has painstakingly burnished since getting her begin as an assistant for Madonna.
Assistants coming into the Clyde community additionally admire Grimm’s attentiveness towards making a very good match. “She understands not solely how demanding the job might be, however how a profitable partnership requires each events to belief the match is an effective match,” Sarah Dolan, Kaia Gerber’s private assistant, says. “Meghan doesn’t simply make it easier to discover a job, however a house. The help she gave me each throughout and after the method was immeasurable and I might be ceaselessly grateful for her.”
Helen Joel, the manager assistant to Mandy Moore, agrees. “I used to be searching for a really particular job after I got here to Clyde,” Joel says. “[Grimm’s] years of expertise and private connections made putting me in my function a seamless expertise. It actually has been the right job for me.”
Grimm, who grew up in Manhasset, New York, and graduated from Georgetown College, first started her profession at Ralph Lauren, turning a contract gig doing superstar styling and PR right into a full-time alternative with the style model. She’d commonly work together throughout fittings with actors’ and musicians’ assistants, sparking her early curiosity in pursuing that line of labor. Because it simply so occurred, Grimm’s boss at Ralph Lauren knew Madonna’s stylist and, when a gap for an assistant place got here up, Grimm interviewed for it and bought the job.
The yr she spent helping Madonna, who she refers to easily as “M,” would later assist function the inspiration for launching Clyde. “I used to be spending time together with her kids and her household, and I walked away from that job pondering, ‘I actually need them to have good individuals round,’” Grimm remembers. The sensation would proceed when Grimm went on to work for the producer Casey Patterson and, later, Jennifer Lawrence — the latter of whom Grimm says was extremely supportive of her launching Clyde.
She additionally credit Shavawn Rissman and Sara Zambreno from Madonna’s crew and Justine Ciarrocchi from Lawrence’s crew for his or her invaluable mentorship. “[These] ladies helped me study the whole lot and I’ll at all times keep in mind that and be glad about them,” Grimm says, trying to Clyde as a approach to provide mentorship to extra assistants in her community.
As of now, Clyde — the identify is impressed by Bonnie & Clyde — is generally centered on L.A. and New York, with just a few purchasers in Nashville, Georgia and the UK. However Grimm has her sights set on enlargement and hopes for Clyde to “pave the best way for different individuals to work in leisure jobs” and see being a profession assistant as being extra than simply operating errands or choosing up espresso.
“When individuals hear that I’m a private assistant, more often than not the primary query I’m requested is, ‘How did you get began?’ There isn’t. There isn’t a ‘approach’ if you wish to work in leisure,” Grimm says. “I feel that’s why I really feel so fulfilled in my new function with Clyde. The quantity of people that will write me months after the location and say, ‘I simply wish to let you realize I’ve by no means been happier in a job’ — it makes me really feel so good. And it’s extremely rewarding.”
A model of this story first appeared within the March 29 concern of The Hollywood Reporter journal. Click on right here to subscribe.
