Meet Michelle Ekwoge at Rentlytics

Michelle recently won the Eden/OrgOrg “Most Indispensable Organizer” contest, and is looking forward to the reward: a trip for two to Hawaii. We wanted to share her story and impact with the broader Office Management and Eden community. Here’s a glimpse at what her co-workers said while nominating Michelle for this honor:

“Michelle came in like a wrecking ball – she filled our atmosphere with a massive orb of positive energy.”

“Michelle exemplifies positivity and teamwork. She organizes our office incredibly well and sets up an atmosphere that inspires everyone else to take better care of it. She stays on top of requests, she foresees and is proactive around storage and office arrangement and she is certified doer that we couldn't do without.”

“Michelle's ability to multitask as remain calm in stressful situations is amazing!”

We sat down with Michelle to ask her some questions about her job at Rentlytics, and her general philosophies on office management.

What inspires you? Why do you love what you do?

The people on my team truly inspire me. We all have very different personalities and come from diverse backgrounds, which makes every day interesting. It’s been so much fun getting to know my coworkers both inside and outside of work — the people I work with are awesome! I also love that as office manager, you have a lot of insight into company operations, so you gain a lot of knowledge.

How long have you been in this line of work?

About three years. When I moved out to San Francisco, I originally took a job as an office manager with a real estate company in the suburbs. The work was great, but really wanted to work in the city. I worked at a couple of startups after that, and loved the energy. Rentlytics is the perfect place for me because it combines my real estate and office management backgrounds.

What are your responsibilities at Rentlytics?

I handle office management, which includes greeting guests, planning staff events like holiday parties, stocking snacks, and all people operations – like recruiting and on-boarding. People & culture is my specialty. I also manage accounts payable – when you’re at a startup, you pitch in wherever you’re needed! I love helping other people – whether that’s helping them go further in their career, or helping them when something isn’t going right.

What might people find most surprising about your job?

I think the breadth of responsibilities I have is surprising, at least to people who aren’t part of the SF startup scene. I have my hands in a lot of different things. Every day is different. In the morning I might be working on recruiting a Senior Vice President, and in the afternoon I’m organizing snacks in the kitchen.

Tell me about your work with Eden – why did you originally seek out help from a company like Eden?

We needed help with handyman services – things like assembling furniture, since we are constantly hiring.  I go to my OrgOrg peers when I’m looking for a vendor, and so many people there recommended Eden. The Eden wizards are always on time, they’re friendly, and Eden’s prices are very reasonable.

We recently had a board meeting and decided to upgrade our conference room chairs – the ones we had were more stylish than functional. 12 new chairs arrived the morning of the meeting, and they all needed assembly. Eden wizards came over and took care of everything. They even cleaned up. I never could have gotten all of that done in time by myself. I use Eden every week for projects like that.

What do you like to do out of the office?

I love live music and hanging out with friends. I’m planning a Halloween party right now – it’s rewarding for me to plan an event and then make sure everyone has a good time. I also love to read. That’s my downtime.

Favorite App: Definitely Spotify. I have music playing all the time.

Favorite Song: My friends say that “Just Dance” by Lady Gaga describes me perfectly.

About Rentlytics:

Rentlytics solves the core analytical challenge of the modern multifamily real estate business: critical data is scattered across assets, making it difficult to access or understand. The Rentlytics Business Intelligence platform brings all of the data important to your portfolio into one place, and makes this data easy to analyze, share and act on. Today, the Rentlytics platform is actively helping many of the largest multifamily real estate owners and managers leverage data to drive better performance and grow portfolio returns.