Security Check:
Sloane is a multilingual, creative ideas and big picture person on a mission to build brands without succumbing to fad. She has a background in brand development and political research and has served the hospitality, hyper-tech, and luxury goods sectors.

She refines big ideas and activates them by combining a product, with trend and innovations, and with great thought and design. She is inspired by global dining experiences & hyper-technology and is currently working on her first pop-up food concept restaurant in New York City.

What’s your historical Los Angeles and New York connection?
Born an Angeleno but a New Yorker by blood, my historical LA/NY connection was inherently influenced my father’s childhood in Queens during the time of the early Jewish Mobsters and also by my Mother’s New York, bursting with the cultural high times and memories of being on billboards down Broadway, features in countless fashion spreads, and gracing magazine covers…to stories of Factory parties and disco studded limo rides home from Studio 54.

My New York started a little more bohemian and academic, at that, filled with small Jazz clubs, arguing scholars, and an exposure to some of the legends of the late 1990’s downtown arts swing. This slowly grew into a personal network of media professionals, curators, and creators as I jumped from 17 to 25 going back and fourth, several times a year.

I moved to Barcelona after university, where I was an arts and food writer and Co-Founder to a city-wide concierge service, where I found myself moving back to LA before seeking out professional life in NYC. It wasn’t until Spring of 2013 that I met the exact leader, Alan Philips, for whom I wanted to work and learn everything that he knew, that I considered a full-time move to NYC. I moved with very short notice to begin a dream position with Morgans Hotel Group in both brand marketing and food and beverage development.

Describe your experience in LA and your experience in NYC
Reverse story: most people move over night to LA to pursue their dreams of stardom, but I flew 2462 miles to NYC in pursuit of a different kind of magic. Far from entertainment and Hollywood, I wanted bold design, big marketing initiatives, stronger industry and a withstanding product that pushed the avant-garde and to work on pop-up food concepts and hotel experiences.

Los Angeles wasn’t moving as fast and as distinctly as NY was for me, but I managed to find the newly founded, at the time, incubator/accelerator scene to keep up with what young engineers, designers, and brand strategist were working on. Which lead me to my first job of doing Business Development and Creative Service/Account Management for a niche creative placement agency working with countless types of clients and roles. So like my network in NYC, I sought out and formed relationships with creators, pioneers in innovation, and art.

There is still a little LA left in me, like: an obsession to still listen to KCRW every morning and listen to Morning becomes eclectic, albeit in my afternoon.

What was the biggest challenge of moving from NYC to LA?
The biggest challenge of moving from LA to NYC was being able to activate my existing network that I had been building up over the years and start fortifying real relationships and friendships in the city out of that. Second to that was the work-play balance which definitely took me a year of being a work-horse to understand.

How can NYC and LA best engage with each other?
It really is a tale of two cities. Both places thrive off of very distinct energies, but I think there needs to be a better social network to bridge the connectivity and start influencing each other. An event, like DAYBREAKR, has been a powerful movement in the communication of the tech and social communities on both coasts, but there needs to be more chatter, more activating, and more doing between the two.

Favorite LA secret spot
Far back table, just past the Ficus tree, at Cliff Edge, in Silver Lake or going through old television and radio achieves at the Paley Center for Media (man do I miss it under the name of “The Museum of Television & Radio”). If in Venice, a stop past the Museum of Jurassic Technology is always a great escape.

Favorite NYC secret spot
The underbelly of the Whale at the Natural History Museum.

What would you be doing if you weren’t working on the Pop Up Concept right now?
I’m obsessed with launching my first pop up concept, so I’m content with learning the start up process and wouldn’t want to be doing anything else…at the moment!

Inflight Entertainment: tell us what song/album, TV show, podcast, or web videos you’ve been watching lately.
I’ve been captivated by the latest DARPA competitions as well as binging on Serialand Here Be Monsters radio programs.

From the 2462 Miles newsletter: connecting NEW YORK CITY + LOS ANGELES