Business
Finding love for $300,000: Inside the business of a matchmaker to the rich and famous
Amber Kelleher-Andrews is in search of a husband: ideally engaging, ideally profitable and, above all, indisputably wealthy.
She has simply the proper girl lined up for him.
“Her face is extra stunning than any girl you’ve ever seen in your life. It was, like, beautiful,” Kelleher-Andrews says of her latest consumer, a 29-year-old from London whom she’d simply met for lunch on the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills. “She simply sits down and says, ‘Hiya hiya, I’m going to lastly meet my husband.’ And I’m like, ‘Sure, we’re!’”
They are saying you’ll be able to’t put a value on love, however the elite matchmaker has put a value on discovering it for you: $30,000 to $300,000 a yr for her firm’s providers. “I do know it seems like some huge cash,” she says, “however it’s pocket change to the rich.”
As co-chief government of Kelleher Worldwide, one of many nation’s largest matchmaking corporations, Kelleher-Andrews, 52, has been pairing off super-rich singles for greater than half of her life. The corporate’s clientele is a tabloid’s dream lineup of Hollywood entertainers, Silicon Valley founders, skilled athletes and coaches, politicians and Wall Avenue tycoons. The listing is after all confidential, although a number of recognizable names — Terrell Owens, Cheryl Tiegs, Hoda Kotb and Bode Miller — have copped to being members at one level.
John Berg, left, co-CEO of Kelleher Worldwide, founder Jill Kelleher, and Kelleher’s granddaughter, Tallulah Andrews.
(Michelle Groskopf / For The Instances)
There isn’t a minimal web price required — having the ability to pay the membership charge is proof sufficient — however shoppers should be critical about wanting long-term dedication. It’s not, Kelleher-Andrews says, “exhibiting up for a hookup.”
Earlier this month, she was conducting enterprise poolside on the Rosewood Miramar Seaside resort, trying first-date prepared in a sheer mini-dotted black gown and chunky Versace sun shades, cherry-lacquered mani-pedi matching her vibrant crimson lips, striped straw hat perched atop platinum blond curls. The seashore just under, her 16-year-old daughter, Tallulah, says, is the place Travis Barker lately proposed to Kourtney Kardashian whereas kneeling in an infinite coronary heart made out of roses.
This has been Kelleher-Andrews’ momentary work setup for months after relocating the corporate from its longtime headquarters in Marin County to Montecito in the course of the pandemic. Whereas development is ongoing on the agency’s new workplaces subsequent door — she’s changing a part of the house right into a “mini retreat” for shoppers to return mingle — the nook cabana on the lavish five-star resort is the place she typically takes matchmaking calls and hosts digital employees conferences.
Kelleher-Andrews and her mom, Jill Kelleher, who based the corporate in 1986, panicked at the beginning of COVID, fearing it meant the demise of their enterprise. Their crew of matchmakers virtually at all times met in individual with potential shoppers to get to know them and to remove liars, losers and low-incomers. Apart from, may sparks actually fly over Zoom?
They might. The $5-billion U.S. courting trade surged in the course of the pandemic. Kelleher Worldwide recorded its finest yr ever in 2020; income then almost doubled in 2021, to $12.4 million. The agency is on observe to prime $18 million this yr.
Instances of disaster have typically translated to an sudden growth in enterprise for the corporate.
“We did rather well in 2001 when the World Commerce Heart went down. We had been so busy,” says Kelleher-Andrews, a former actress who has appeared on “Baywatch” and “Melrose Place.” “After which when the recession hit, we had been so busy. After which when COVID hit, we had been so busy. Persons are reevaluating. Bush stated, ‘Go house and hug your loved ones,’ they usually’re like, ‘I don’t have a household, I’ve been engaged on Wall Avenue.’”
(Michelle Groskopf / For The Instances)
Three generations, from left: Tallulah Andrews, Amber Kelleher-Andrews and Jill Kelleher.
(Michelle Groskopf / For The Instances)
Matchmaking within the period of free courting apps appears virtually quaint, however Kelleher-Andrews insists the 2 don’t evaluate — significantly for those who’re well-known and loaded. It’s considered one of some ways the wealthy use their cash to insulate themselves from annoyances visited on common people, whether or not it’s business flights, airport safety, house cooking or caring for their very own children.
“It’s crucial job of your life; why not have somebody do the legwork?” Kelleher-Andrews says. The rich are “busier, far more profitable and have far more to lose, and don’t like placing themselves on the market publicly as a result of they might have gold diggers or stalkers.”
Priming the pump
On a Tuesday morning in January, the Kelleher Worldwide crew has gathered on Zoom. They’re a glamorous and gregarious bunch of almost all ladies, the tiled display screen resembling a hair salon lookbook as an alternative of a company weekly all-hands assembly.
Picture, Kelleher-Andrews says later, “is every part.”
“We’re not promoting a automobile; we’re promoting a way of life,” she says. “And if we don’t match their life-style, they don’t perceive how we are able to discover them their match.”
The corporate completely closed its department workplaces in the course of the pandemic and now its 40 staff — matchmakers, entry-level community builders who concentrate on vetting, relationship coaches and membership salespeople amongst them — work remotely. Many are positioned in Southern California, its largest of greater than a dozen markets together with San Francisco, New York, Dallas, Denver, Miami, Atlanta, Toronto and London.
“So lots of the shoppers truly do have COVID,” one of many matchmakers, Molly Davis, stories in the beginning of the decision. However they’re being “significantly protected by way of how they’re transferring about, even with the luxurious of personal transportation.”
After Kelleher-Andrews reminds her employees to promote shoppers on upcoming member occasions — an intimate retreat to Richard Branson’s Necker Island resort in April and varied Grammys and Oscars events — the crew turns to consumer challenges. One community developer bemoans a British man who was excellent in each means, save for one flaw.
“It’s crucial job of your life; why not have somebody do the legwork?” Kelleher-Andrews says.
(Michelle Groskopf / For The Instances)
From left, Tallulah Andrews, John Berg, Amber Kelleher-Andrews and Jill Kelleher. The corporate’s clientele is a tabloid’s dream lineup of Hollywood entertainers, Silicon Valley founders, skilled athletes and coaches, politicians and Wall Avenue tycoons.
(Michelle Groskopf / For The Instances)
“He was a man that we liked, he had an incredible persona, general very engaging,” she says. “However we saved getting the identical suggestions: ‘He’s so nice, however his tooth.’ It’s one thing that lots of people couldn’t get previous.” (She finally handed alongside the criticism, with a delicate suggestion to get them mounted.)
Nearly all of the agency’s 800 inquiries a month come from on-line search visitors, and a few third from referrals. To make the lower, Kelleher-Andrews and her crew probe a possible consumer’s funds, schooling, marital standing, courting historical past, household background and profession trajectory, and conduct interviews to gauge dedication and attraction.
Fewer than 5% are accepted; as we speak, there are about 600 shoppers all over the world below one- to three-year contracts, an almost even break up of prosperous women and men. Larger-priced membership ranges imply a wider pool of matches, entry to relationship and life teaching, an outdoor seek for individuals not already within the firm’s database and particular person consideration from Kelleher-Andrews.
I figured, properly, gee, let’s prime the pump somewhat bit…. I labored laborious to get the place I’m, and the place else am I going to make use of my cash?
Benson Riseman, co-founder of Inexperienced Dot Corp. and a former Kelleher Worldwide consumer
Matchmakers are full-time staff and incentivized with bonuses for relationship milestones; an engagement is price $2,500. Kelleher-Andrews says the corporate has been chargeable for hundreds of marriages, with 87% of her shoppers “discovering love.”
Benson Riseman, co-founder of monetary expertise agency Inexperienced Dot Corp., is without doubt one of the fortunately ever afters. Forward of the corporate’s 2010 IPO, he says, he started considering the following stage of his life and figured hiring a matchmaker may assist him discover the proper girl.
“The entire thought was international to me of discovering another person to characterize me, however I figured, properly, gee, let’s prime the pump somewhat bit, let’s see some people and meet lots of people,” Riseman, now 65 and a philanthropist, says. “I labored laborious to get the place I’m, and the place else am I going to make use of my cash?”
He signed with Kelleher Worldwide in 2011, courting ceaselessly for the primary few years.
“I jumped in with each ft and each time the cellphone rang they usually stated, ‘We all know this woman …’ I stated, ‘OK, let’s go,’” he remembers. “It was entertaining, and for probably the most half it was extra enjoyable than sitting at house consuming Frosted Flakes in mattress.”
(Michelle Groskopf / For The Instances)
“I’m simply their little mini,” Tallulah Andrews says of her mom and grandmother.
(Michelle Groskopf / For The Instances)
In 2014, Riseman was matched with a girl who labored in luxurious actual property. They chatted on the cellphone twice earlier than assembly in Las Vegas for dinner. They had been each divorced and every had an older son and a youthful daughter, a commonality that helped forge a bond from the beginning; they married three years later. “It was a superb slot in each means,” he says.
One other former consumer, a 55-year-old Emmy-winning actress and producer from Encino, joined after going by way of a divorce.
“I used to be at all times afraid of happening any of the courting websites,” she says. “Being a semi-public determine — I’m not a Nicole Kidman or one thing — I used to be at all times like, ‘What if there’s a serial killer on the market?’ I wished extra background checking.”
She was additionally annoyed by L.A.’s courting scene.
“It was laborious to search out somebody on this city who a) doesn’t wish to solely date 30 and below, and b) is critical about in search of an actual relationship and isn’t simply buying and selling up and buying and selling in each month or so,” she says. “I wanted some assist weeding these guys out of the combo. And these guys at Kelleher had been critical about discovering love as a result of they’d simply dedicated a crap-ton of cash towards doing that.”
Straight away she was matched with a Silicon Valley tech co-founder whom she was with for nearly half a yr; the 2 finally broke up due to the lengthy distance. She met a handful of different males after that — all fabulously wealthy, some obnoxiously so: “If a man leads with a jet, he’s a douchebag,” she says — and one has change into a detailed buddy, although it didn’t work out romantically.
Just a few consumer relationships have turned bitter. In 2017, Kelleher Worldwide settled with a former QVC government who stated she had paid a $150,000 membership charge solely to go on a string of unhealthy dates, together with one with an Australian entrepreneur who took her to Costa Rica and Panama after which whisked his ex on one other journey the identical day she returned house. One other man, listed within the lawsuit as “the Serial Lothario,” was a Fortune 500 government who allegedly ghosted her after a number of months of courting.
Amber Kelleher-Andrews and her husband, Nico Andrews, have been married for 22 years.
(Michelle Groskopf / For The Instances)
(Michelle Groskopf / For The Instances)
Love is within the middle
Standing on a balcony at her opulent Montecito house, a seven-bedroom, eight-bathroom Colonial set on 2 acres in a gated group, Kelleher-Andrews opens up about her personal wealth.
“Most of it got here from actual property,” she says, searching at a terraced yard that results in a non-public tennis court docket backed by rolling hills and a cover of dense bushes. There are two Porsche convertibles parked within the roundabout driveway, flanking a three-tiered fountain, and a visitor wing by the pool. “It has nothing to do with Kelleher.”
She rattles off the acquisition and sale costs of each house she has ever owned, an escalating spiral of added zeroes. “All my shoppers — after they’re spending $200,000, $300,000 — they count on me to have cash.”
She joined the household enterprise in 1995 after quitting the leisure trade, launching her personal department in Los Angeles whereas her mother operated out of the Bay Space. The look-alike duo quickly turned fixtures of airline in-flight journal adverts, and in 2013 Kelleher-Andrews starred in an Eva Longoria-produced actuality tv matchmaking present on NBC, “Prepared for Love,” that was canceled after three episodes.
All my shoppers — after they’re spending $200,000, $300,000 — they count on me to have cash.
Amber Kelleher-Andrews, co-CEO of matchmaking agency Kelleher Worldwide
In June she employed a co-chief government, John Berg, to assist develop the corporate. They’ve aspirations to convey Kelleher Worldwide to Asia, an enormous marketplace for matchmaking providers, and to broaden its clientele to incorporate the LGBTQ group.
However her most important precedence proper now’s to maneuver past courting.
She’s properly conscious of a basic weak spot within the matchmaking enterprise mannequin: A profitable match between shoppers means two misplaced clients. In contrast to common courting app Hinge, whose tagline is “the courting app designed to be deleted,” Kelleher-Andrews isn’t in search of a one-off relationship together with her deep-pocketed, well-connected shoppers.
So she’s making ready to launch an unique social membership this summer time, a separate membership designed for singles and {couples} that prices $50,000 to hitch (present matchmaking shoppers can be grandfathered in). It’ll be a mixture of philanthropy, supper events and opulent journeys meant to foster deep friendships between members — and a extra lasting tie to the agency itself. If romance blossoms, all the higher.
“We’re working with a gaggle of animals and how one can assist rescue them and protect this space of the world,” Kelleher-Andrews says of an upcoming tour to Antarctica for charity. “You may have a bunch of vacationers go down and say, ‘Oh, have a look at the penguins,’ or ‘Oh, wow, have a look at the polar bears,’ or you might convey a bunch of rich individuals they usually’ll say, ‘We may also help repair this.’”
She believes the social membership may change into a 3rd of the corporate’s enterprise.
“I really like working with rich individuals as a result of we’re transferring the needle and making a distinction on the earth,” she says, “and love is at all times within the middle.”
“We’re not promoting a automobile; we’re promoting a way of life,” Kelleher-Andrews says of her fastidiously cultivated picture. “And if we don’t match their life-style, they don’t perceive how we are able to discover them their match.”
(Michelle Groskopf / For The Instances)
As for her personal private life, Kelleher-Andrews has been married for 22 years to Nico Andrews, a jiujitsu champion she met when she was 21 when each had been working on the Roxbury on Sundown Boulevard (he was head of safety; she was a cocktail waitress).
“He’ll play a flute that he makes from bamboo whereas he’s using a horse after which he can kick some critical ass in jiujitsu. So you’ll be able to’t actually place him,” she says. “What I didn’t marry was a typical PhD Harvard man from Wall Avenue, which is what we characterize.”
Certain sufficient, round midafternoon, Andrews could possibly be discovered within the grandiose kitchen downstairs, pouring himself a shot of mezcal whereas wearing a cowboy hat and boots with spurs.
Requested if he has any relationship knowledge of his personal, he provides two items of recommendation: “All the time be sure to’re the caretaker of your associate’s house. And in addition, any massive choices, just remember to’re each concerned.”
The couple have three kids; Tallulah, the youngest, wish to observe in her mom’s and grandmother’s footsteps and change into a matchmaker herself.
“It’s so excellent that it’s like a line of blonds, the following technology. I’m simply their little mini,” the highschool sophomore says. Then she pauses, leans in shut and whispers, “I even have brown hair.”
At the moment Kelleher, 77, is essentially a figurehead for the corporate she based greater than three a long time in the past, aiding staff on difficult matches and chiming in on employees Zooms with such Hallmark-isms as “comfortable spouse, comfortable life.”
She is single herself, one thing that Kelleher-Andrews, ever the matchmaker, wish to treatment.
“We discuss matching my mother on a regular basis,” she says. “She gained’t freaking do it.”
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