About The Assist

The smart friend in
300K+ inboxes every week.

Founded in 2020. Independent. Built for the modern working woman.

Our story

What had happened was...

The Assist started with a DM.

In 2020, I was doing part-time community management for the largest private Facebook group for executive assistants — 10,000+ women, all sharing how they navigated their bosses, asked for raises, pushed back, and survived.

A few of them started messaging me to ask if there was a cleaner way to get all that content. We built it for them. The first edition of The Assist went out on September 29, 2020.

I wasn't supposed to be there. A few months earlier, I'd been furloughed from my marketing job at a unicorn tech company. I'd come from the music industry, moved into tech, and built my whole personality around a job I loved. When COVID hit and the job went away, so did my sense of who I was.

For the first six months, I built The Assist in the mornings and worked a full-time contract role the rest of the day. Then in January 2021, my mom was rushed into emergency brain surgery. It was the kind of moment that scrambles your priorities. I'd been holding onto my contract role because it felt stable.

After her surgery, "stable" stopped meaning what it used to. I wanted flexibility. I wanted to be able to drop everything if my family needed me. I wanted to build something on my own terms and the universe seemed to be testing me on that.

The same week my mom went in for surgery, two companies that had previously furloughed me asked me to come back. I turned them both down and went all in on The Assist.

I had three co-founders alongside me: my husband Rich, who I'd met at my old job, and Sean and Andy, who were running SnackNation and had brought me in to manage the Facebook communities in the first place.

What I didn't expect: the audience didn't stay where we started. We built The Assist for executive assistants. Within months, our inbox was full of replies from marketing managers, HR directors, founders, and operations leads, all saying the same thing: I'm not your target reader, but this is the email I open first every morning.

So we followed the readers. We started writing for women climbing the corporate ladder, for women trying to build the careers and the lives they actually wanted, for women who needed the kind of advice nobody teaches you in school.

I wish someone had handed me The Assist when I was 25. I accepted jobs without negotiating. I sat on good ideas because I was too afraid to speak up. I dealt with imposter syndrome on my own. Still do. That's why I built it.

And 6 years and 300K+ women later, here we are.

— Joanna

Our story

What had happened was...

Our mission

The future we want to see

The modern working woman is doing a lot.

She's building a career, managing relationships, navigating burnout, caregiving, healing, leading teams, showing up for friends, figuring out finances, trying to stay healthy, and somehow still expected to smile through all of it.

And for a long time, women were expected to handle all of it without flinching. That's why we created The Assist. A newsletter, a community, and the smart friend you wish was already in your inbox.

Because women don't experience work in a vacuum, we experience it as whole people. We experience it while navigating hormonal changes, fertility decisions, caregiving responsibilities, mental health, burnout, bias, safety concerns, unequal expectations, and systems that historically were not built with us in mind.

And yet, women continue to lead.
To innovate.
To build companies.
To raise families.
To advocate.
To create

And to keep going even when no one’s clapping.

"It's powerful to be surrounded by fellow ambitious women who are working hard in their careers while trying to balance time for self-care, family, etc."

- Amy Gattoni

Senior Account Director

"No fluff and no BS approach to taking women seriously - this includes all facets of life, not just business. It's a holistic approach to helping women be the best we can be. I love that."

- Sam

Operations Manager, Inhabit Real Estate

to keep going even when no one's clapping.

We're building TA for women who want media that takes the whole of their life seriously, including the parts that don't fit on a calendar invite.

The Assist exists to help you navigate work and life with less guesswork and better company, through smart content, practical tools, honest conversations, and a community of women who actually get it.

Here's what that looks like

Our beliefs

What we believe

What we’re building toward:

✦ Equal pay and equitable opportunities
✦ Safe workplaces and safe communities
✦ Affordable healthcare and childcare
✦ Leadership representation at every level
✦ Financial freedom and financial literacy
✦ Boundaries without guilt
✦ Wellness without shame
✦ Support without judgment
✦ The ability to pursue motherhood, career ambition, both, or neither on our own terms

We believe periods, perimenopause, and pelvic floors should be part of everyday conversation.

We believe empathy is the skill most rooms still treat as optional.

We believe you can run a P&L and still cry at Grey’s Anatomy. Both can be true on the same Tuesday.

We believe women should not have to shrink themselves to succeed.

And we believe the “good ol’ boys club” should no longer define who gets power, opportunity, safety, or influence.

Our vision

Together, we can build

A future where women lead at every level, in every room, in every industry.

A future so rewired that women aren’t fighting to prove their value, justify their boundaries, or choose between ambition and not being exhausted.

→ Pregnancy doesn’t threaten a woman’s career
→ Paid leave is actually paid, and actually leave
→ Pay transparency is the default
→ Prenups, investing, negotiation, and wealth-building are normalized conversations for women
→ Menstrual health is health
→ Therapy is on the calendar like any other appointment
→ Women feel safe walking to their cars at night

→ The mental load stops being one woman’s full-time job
→ Caregiving is recognized as labor, whether it’s paid or happening at home
→ Women’s rights and bodily autonomy are protected
→ Women support other women instead of competing for limited seats at the table

→ AI gets built with women shaping it from the start
→ Aging stops being something women have to apologize for

Most of all, we want a future where women get to show up fully as themselves: ambitious, emotional, brilliant, nurturing, strategic, strong, creative, feminine, bold, and not apologizing for any of it.

Because the future shouldn’t require women to become less of themselves to succeed. It should finally make room for every version of her.

Our team

Who we are.

The smart, fun, slightly chaotic crew behind every issue.

Joanna Ericta

Co-founder & Editor-in-chief

Joanna spent nearly a decade in the music industry producing concerts for the Cleveland Orchestra, working with Cash Money Records, and booking (then joining) a friend's 2.5-month national tour at 21, because that felt reasonable. She later ran 50+ events a year at ZipRecruiter, until a furlough opened the unexpected door we now call The Assist. Outside of work, she's a horror movie devotee (bad ones included), a true crime obsessive, and a travel addict with 14+ countries logged. She's mom to three rescue pets, including Tofu, a toothless cat saved after the Palisades fire. She was once the frontwoman of a live electronic pop band and keyboardist for an all-girl band called Bobbipin. As of last fall, she’s adding drums to her résumé, one obsessive practice session at a time.See More

Andy Mackensen

Co-Founder & Chief Growth Officer

Andy is Co-Founder and CEO of LeadRoller, the media operator behind The Assist. He built two Inc. 500 companies from the ground up including the country’s leading office snack brand, SnackNation. Before that, he was a combat-decorated Naval Officer who served in the Iraq War. These days, he’s most fired up about building The Assist into the leading media platform for ambitious professional women while connecting best-in-class brands to serve them.
He holds a BS from Boston University and an MBA from Stanford, and lives in LA with his wife, two sons, and their labradoodle. Outside of work, he’s chasing powder days, moonlighting as a DJ, and always has a clever dad joke loaded and ready to fire.See More

Rich Fendler

Co-founder

Rich spent his career building media, content, and partnership-driven businesses before co-founding The Assist, where he now leads growth, partnerships, and revenue strategy: connecting brands with the TA audience in a way that feels helpful instead of like an ad. He's passionate about keeping TA a smart, useful, trusted voice for women who are carrying a lot at work and still making it look easy.
He lives in LA with his wife, dog, and two cats, and stays moving with basketball, hiking, and lifting. He's weirdly into optimizing everything (workouts, sleep, dinner orders, even email subject lines). He firmly believes most problems can be solved with a good walk, a better question, or a strong cup of coffee. See More

Tyler Simpson

Project Manager

Tyler got his start in SEO before helping grow a blog to over a million monthly visits, with content that ranked on page one of Google. Now he's the Project Manager at TA, connecting subscriber growth, partner relationships, and sponsorship strategy into things that actually launch. What he loves most: TA never stops building, and there's always a new idea to take from scratch to reality.
His wife jokes that if he picks up one more hobby, he'll have to give one up: a fish tank, competitive beach volleyball, fantasy sports leagues, and vintage Big Dog sweaters. He's an avid reader on all things American West and always down for a new craft brewery. Mostly, he's happiest with his wife and young daughter. See More

Julia Shareika

Head of Media Partnerships

Julia has sold just about everything: martech tools, sponsorship packages, even literal coffee pouched in China and shipped to the US and EU, back when she co-founded a coffee company from scratch.She's built outbound sales teams, hired SDRs from two continents, and racked up a reputation as a closer wherever she landed. Now she's Head of Media Partnerships at TA, connecting brands with our audience. Unsurprisingly, her favorite part of the job is closing the deal.
Outside of work, you’ll catch her building an astrology-based productivity tool or adding cool pens to her collection. See More

Cameron Huber

Newsletter Operations & Revenue Strategy Manager

Fresh out of college, Cameron started at The Assist six years ago as a contract social media manager. Four promotions later, she's running the intersection of operations and revenue. Think sponsor calendars, Mailchimp automations, subscriber data, and Smart Girl Society, the paid community. She runs it end to end! She’s honored to have contributed to TA’s growth from 25K to 300K+ subscribers, and raves her TA coworkers feel more like family than colleagues.
Outside of work, you'll find her mid-strength-training session or near water. A former competitive college swimmer, she scuba dives whenever she can and has a Monterey Bay Aquarium membership she uses more than any reasonable adult should admit to.See More

Kristel Issa

Sponsorship Ops & Content Manager

Before marketing, Kristel spent over a decade as a teacher, and it taught her more about clear communication than any job since. Now, she manages long-form content and sponsorships, turning ideas into guides, case studies, and campaigns that actually perform. Basically she’s been explaining complex things clearly her whole career, just with better coffee now.She thrives on the whiplash between creativity and strategy, especially alongside a team that's genuinely in each other's corner.Speaking of which: she speaks four languages, travels for the history and the food, and bakes well enough that people keep telling her to open a restaurant (we agree). When she's not optimizing a sponsorship calendar, she's probably tackling a landscaping project or hanging out with her husband, kids, and Chihuahua. See More

Thania Guardino

Senior Content Manager

From exec leadership to founder, Thania's worked the full spectrum startups, edu tech, ad agencies, small businesses. She's been the corporate girly and the entrepreneur, worked internationally, and now runs content and social at TA pulling from all of it, passionate about helping women take up more space at work.Outside work, she'll gossip about the latest Bravo drama or wellness podcast, and she's a foodie with a soft spot for tequila, equally at happy at Home Depot or Whole Foods. She's always down to explore a new country, credit card be damned.Fun fact: she's known Joanna since age five, and they've been best friends ever since.See More

Our standards

The standards you can expect.

Everything we publish is built around our mission of helping women feel informed, supported, confident, and connected.

Reflects our values

Our readers are balancing careers, families, friendships, finances, wellness, caregiving, and personal goals. We focus on information, ideas, and resources that are useful, relevant, and worth their attention.

Practical matters

Knowledge is most powerful when it can be applied. Whether we’re covering careers, leadership, money, wellness, relationships, or personal growth, our goal is insight women can carry into their everyday lives.

We believe in smart women

Women experience work as whole people. Career growth intersects with health, finances, caregiving, relationships, mental wellness, safety, and identity – and we embrace all of it.

We reflect real life

Our readers are thoughtful, capable, ambitious, and fully capable of making informed decisions. Our role is to provide context, resources, and meaningful conversations that help women feel empowered.

Recommendations are real

Our partnerships are built around products, services, and brands we genuinely believe can bring value to our readers. Every partnership begins with the same question: would we feel confident recommending this to a friend?

Built on trust

Trust is the foundation of every relationship we build with our readers, partners, contributors, and community. We approach every partnership with care, intention, and a commitment to creating value.

Thoughtful collaboration

We view our partners as an extension of the experience we create for our readers. Together, we create content that feels useful, relevant, and naturally aligned with our audience.

Our promise

Everything designed
with you in mind.

Through intentional content, practical resources, meaningful conversations, and trusted recommendations, we create an experience that helps women navigate life with greater clarity and reminds them they never have to do it alone.

As featured in

The smart friend in
300K+ inboxes every week.

What had happened was...

What had happened was...