How One Exec Runs Busy Digital Agency While Staying True to Her Faith

360i Global CEO Sarah Hofstetter on Balancing Work and Orthodox Judaism

By Alexandra Bruell for AdAge

When 360i's global CEO Sarah Hofstetter is out of the office, she puts IsTodayAJewishHoliday.com in her automated email response. The link has a dual purpose. It adds a little humor to what would otherwise be a dry out-of-office reply, and it convinces clients that she's not making up Jewish holidays.

This is just one of the ways Ms. Hofstetter, an Orthodox Jew from Long Island, N.Y., balances her professional life with her personal life and faith.

The 39-year-old CEO runs one of the most-buzzed-about digital agencies and has been promoted three times in two years. She's managed that success while taking care of two kids; keeping kosher despite the wining-and-dining demands of running an agency; and completely shutting down between sunset on Friday and sunset on Saturday to observe Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.

After graduating from Yeshiva and then Queens College, Ms. Hofstetter worked as an editorial assistant for a New York Times syndicate. A year later, at 22, she got married and decided to go to what she humorously calls the "dark side," handling in-house PR and investor relations at telecommunications company IDT. "We were really young," she said of herself and her husband. "We just needed enough money to cover costs."

Eight years later, she decided to set up her own shop. IDT was her first client, and 360i soon followed. At IDT she hit a glass ceiling, she said, but working directly with a CEO for so long taught her about business and about how to make choices. "The things you choose not to do are as important as things you choose to do," she said. It's a motto of sorts that's guided her at 360i.

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