For a long while, corporate agencies ran the scene when it came to assisting in finding household staffing. Sure, a friend of a friend could refer you to someone in their network, but the process was complicated, and finding someone vetted was no easy feat. Enter: The Wellington Agency, a full-service staffing agency founded by April Berube.
Before she established The Wellington Agency, Berube founded Nanny Poppins, a Boston-based agency specializing in providing nannies to families. She started that company at just 23 years old, as a way for her and her best friend to create an income stream for themselves. Years later, that business is still in existence, but Berube’s plans shifted as she grew interested in moving to Florida.
She replicated her nanny agency in Wellington—a village 16 miles west of West Palm Beach—with an agency called Wellington Nannies.
“I came across a couple of very high net-worth clients in my area,” says Berube. “They guided me a little bit and started to refer me to friends of theirs in New York City, the Hamptons, and Los Angeles. They gave me a leg up and opened their network of people to me.”
Her well-heeled clients suggested expanding her services to provide private chefs, chauffeurs, estate managers, butlers, housekeepers, and more. “The company then took on a life of its own,” says Berube, when it became The Wellington Agency in 2006. Services expanded to include staffing estate managers, private chefs, and more.
Over the years, with the referral of clients, there was a large opportunity for the business to grow, and it skyrocketed. “We’ve been doing this for 28 years. We have a good reputation in the industry, and unlike a lot of corporate companies, we really care about our clientele and the people we work with. Our goal is to have a deep relationship with everyone.”
Berube says business has only grown since the pandemic, and the need for household staffing for clients across the U.S. has expanded.
She acknowledges there was a learning curve in understanding what people wanted and how the agency could help them. “Building that trust was difficult, because it’s not the same as putting a secretary or an assistant into an office. This is in someone’s home, and they want to feel comfortable, and it is why a lot of the work has many moving parts.”
