Martin Baran
Travelling Private Personal Assistant
The best private assistance doesn't begin with the request.
It begins with understanding what follows.
EUROPE · UNITED STATES · INTERNATIONAL
A REQUEST RARELY EXISTS ON ITS OWN.
The day begins before I am awake. An appointment is twenty minutes away. Nobody on the team has been there before, and the expectation is simple: the principal should arrive and walk into her appointment with as little waiting as possible.
At the same time, breakfast needs arranging for the family at one of two favourite restaurants — both with queues outside and ten minutes' notice of our arrival. Then the day begins to move.
Meanwhile, a separate appointment can no longer be made, but cancelling means losing the possibility of another that day. A request comes in for specific items from a particular pâtisserie. The yacht leaves port in two hours. Guests need collecting by tender. The principal is running late returning to the yacht. One assistant needs to get to London as soon as possible, collect a bicycle belonging to a family member and bring it back to the South of France.
Dinner changes. A reservation for six is no longer needed, but cancelling now means a substantial charge. Another reservation needs to move beyond the restaurant's second seating — and the table has grown from six guests to ten. Then another guest decides to join from London.
Her flight lands in four hours. Assistance is needed on arrival, with a porter for the luggage and a driver to a private terminal in time for the final helicopter departure before nightfall. Another car needs to meet her at the other end. Accommodation aboard the yacht needs confirming. She is expected at dinner.
And shortly before midnight, another request arrives. A table for six. Tonight. The club is fully booked. The table is found.
Cars remain on standby. The yacht crew prepares for a late return.
The requests were the beginning.
The consequences became the work.
THE STANDARD
A principal should not have to manage the consequences of their own request.
A change in one place creates movement elsewhere. Recognising that movement — before another instruction is needed — is where assistance becomes anticipation.
Those are not new instructions. They are part of the original one.
ABOUT
My career began in Los Angeles, supporting the founder of a contemporary art business. The role moved naturally between professional and personal life — exhibitions and appointments alongside international travel, private residences, household requirements and the countless details that rarely fit neatly into a job description.
In Prague, that proximity continued. Supporting a principal meant understanding both sides of the diary: the professional commitments that could be planned, and the personal life around them that often could not.
My work eventually developed into dedicated travelling private assistance, supporting a family as their lives moved between countries, hotels, residences, yachts and constantly changing schedules.
That experience deepened my understanding of private assistance.
I am most at home in roles that sit close to the principal — where professional commitments, travel, residences and everyday personal life overlap, and where trust develops through familiarity, consistency and time.
That is the standard behind The Baran Office.
Private assistance lives in the space between the important and the ordinary.
One day may involve coordinating movements between countries, changing travel arrangements, preparing for an arrival or reorganising an evening around ten people. The next request may be much smaller.
A particular item needs finding before a shop closes. Something needs to be retrieved. A suitcase needs packing a particular way. A residence needs to be ready before arrival.
Over time, preferences become familiar. The room they prefer. The table they would choose. How they travel. What belongs in the car. What should already be waiting when they arrive.
Over time, fewer things need to be asked for.