Our History

Secretary in Israel was founded as an answer to a question that Kirk Hylan, CEO of InSite Networks, Inc., asked of Sarah Leah Gootnick.

In May 2007, Kirk called Sarah Leah and asked her how he could find an assistant who was smart and motivated. (The assistant he had just hired locally in the San Francisco Bay Area quit on him after only 1 day on the job.)

Sarah Leah introduced him to Margelit, who had recently moved to Israel from the US. In the US, Margelit, who is a college-graduate, was a top-level executive recruiter.

Kirk and Margelit started working together right away. Kirk was thrilled to finally have, as he has emailed to us numerous times, "the assistant he had always wanted" (but had never been able to find locally in the San Francisco Bay Area).

After the success of their working relationship, Sarah Leah founded Secretary in Israel in January 2008 to provide this service to other clients in the United States.

Our Founder

Sarah Leah Gootnick

Sarah Leah Gootnick is a graduate of Columbia University. She loves helping businesses run more efficiently and she has helped a number of small businesses in the past 10 years do just that.

Sarah Leah's previous work experience includes doing marketing for MRM Partners (a division of McCann Worldgroup) in San Francisco. Prior to that, Sarah Leah founded a nonprofit organization, the Empona Foundation, which helped over 1,000 low-income women get free mammograms and other breast cancer screening exams. The Empona Foundation won the Isabelle Allende 2003 Espiritu Award for the Peace and Protection of Women and was featured in a number of media outlets. Prior to Empona, Sarah Leah ran a medical practice where she helped to double income within months of starting there.

Sarah Leah is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area and currently resides in Jerusalem, Israel.

Read Sarah Leah's blog posts.

MISIA

Misia is originally from Wisconsin and received her BA in Communication Studies and Studio Art from the University of Iowa. Misia has put her degree in Communication to use working as a virtual assistant for Secretary in Israel as well as serving as Secretary in Israel’s Associate Director of Marketing and Communication.

Having worked as a web designer, event fundraiser and advertising and sales manager, Misia has a unique set of skills and tools that enable her to fully support her clients in their administrative needs.

Misia is not just a talented and able virtual assistant to her clients, but she is also a strong leader as well. While at university, Misia helped found her campus’ first Jewish sorority and served as her campus' president of Hillel. These leadership experiences have enabled Misia to conquer any challenge and she feels comfortable taking the reigns in any project, large or small.

BLOG POST: Read Misia's blog post.

ADINA

Originally from Atlanta, GA, Adina obtained her Bachelors of Arts from Thomas Edison State College and her Masters of Arts in Education from California State University. Adina’s graduate studies in Curriculum Design allow her to create focused strategic plans to help clients reach their business goals

Adina has provided virtual support to a wide variety of professionals and has experience in administrative work, including appointment scheduling, recruiting, data entry, transcription, internet research, and more.

As the Director of Efficiency for Virtual Assistants Israel, Adina assists clients and their VAs in developing the necessary platform to establish a great working relationship and smooth communication. She also ensures that the VAI program runs smoothly, and creates and executes all the behind the scene systems that drive VAI.

Adina’s upbeat attitude and enthusiasm are contagious and she is known for her ability to quickly learn and improve upon new programs and systems. She enjoys writing and editing and is a contributing writer for a healthy living magazine based in Atlanta. With her strong sense of motivation, interminable energy and talent for organization, Adina takes every challenge sent her way in stride.

Adina currently lives just outside of Jerusalem.

Would You Like to Learn More?

To learn more about the benefits that our clients are receiving, please visit our client testimonials page.

Or, if you'd like to learn how you can save time each day, please contact a member of our team via our email contact form.

You can also call us at (415) 686-6875 during business hours, which are Sunday - Thursday, 8:00 am - 5:00 pm EST.