Forbes Names Sittercity CEO Genevieve Thiers to Junior Power League
September 4, 2007FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Chicago, Ill.) - Just 29 years old, Genevieve Thiers, CEO and founder of Sittercity.com, has been named a part of the elite Junior Power League, according to Forbes. Although Thiers hasn't reached Forbes Most Powerful Women list quite yet, the influential magazine tells its readers to keep an eye on these seven up-and-coming dynamos. Given the sorts of things on their to-do lists -- like expanding wireless service across the frozen tundra of Alaska, feeding raw materials to the Chinese building boom and stopping terrorist attacks in Great Britain -- Forbes states, "You'll be hearing a lot about them in the future."
Thiers was named alongside Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary of Great Britain, as well as Yang Huiyan, a powerful Chinese businesswoman. "It's a privilege to be thought of in the same company as these talented and admirable women," said Thiers. "I am also honored to be highlighted as a compelling woman to watch by a business outlet that I deeply respect."
The world may be watching now, but Thiers didn't always have this kind of support when she first launched Sittercity back in 2001. Even though she knew there was money to be made matching time-starved parents with college babysitters who needed cash, investors were much more hesitant about funding what they considered a "babysitting club." Undaunted, Thiers borrowed $120 from her father to buy the domain name for Sittercity.com, peppered local Boston campuses with 20,000 flyers and recruited college babysitters—all while working full time at IBM by day and singing opera at night. Thiers has now built Sittercity into a Web-based business that has more than half a million users nationwide and was ranked by Time as one of the 50 coolest Web sites. Sittercity is currently in the midst of expanding its services to petsitting, tutoring and elder care.
About Sittercity.com
Sittercity.com®, the inventor of online caregiving, is the Web's leading parent-sitter matchmaking site for child care and pet care, dedicated to making the process of finding a caregiver fast, easy, safe and fun. With access to hundreds of thousands of sitters nationwide, parents of children or pets can find a wealth of qualified caregivers in their area by using Sittercity's four-step screening process, which includes references, parent-to-parent feedback, personal interviews and free access to background checks. Registration for sitters is free, and parents pay $7.99 per month for an annual membership, which gives them unlimited ability to post jobs, and search, contact and hire sitters in their areas. A true pioneer in its field, Sittercity.com has been featured by hundreds of media outlets, from the Today Show to the Wall Street Journal. It received a Webby Worthy Award in 2005, won the Women's Business Development Center Rising Star Award in 2005 and won the U.S. Small Business Administration Champion Award in 2006 from President Bush. For more information, visit the company Web site at www.sittercity.com.