Kristina De-Levi is the President and CEO of HomeAssist Home Health Services which she founded in 2017. Her husband, Frank De-Levi works with her in the business as well. They are both from Pacifica, California. They both have a deep compassion for the elderly and patients who require an additional element of safety at home and took their common skillsets and experiences and applied them towards this company.
What do you love most about the industry you are in?
FRANK: I really like that we get to advocate for elderly homebound patients that are in need by providing medical and social services. If a patient requires nursing services or a therapist or any kind of in-home medical care, it’s emotionally rewarding to hear feedback from them telling us that we helped make their lives better and helped get them back on their feet.
KRISTINA: For me as well, it is seeing the patients get better and thrive by the time of their discharge.
What keeps you motivated?
FRANK: We are both motivated by the positive feedback from our referral sources, our patients, and their families. It provides instant gratification on so many levels that really goes beyond our profession.
How do you motivate others?
KRISTINA: We believe in positive reinforcement. We give a lot of positive feedback when it’s due. We have a great team and we like to make them feel as valuable as possible because the clinicians are the face of our company. No matter how well you market your company, at the end of the day the service is what really creates your image. We do really well at keeping our personnel on staff because we treat them with dignity and respect.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
KRISTINA: A lot of our inspiration comes from our kids. They’re always so curious about what we do. Every time that we accomplish something, they get just as excited as we do, especially our oldest.
FRANK: I almost feel like a kid trying to impress a parent, and it’s funny because it’s the other way around. It makes us so happy to see how involved our children are in our accomplishments. It makes it feel more like a family business when we see how excited they get.
Who has been a role model to you and why?
FRANK: My mother was a role model to me. Growing up, I saw her as a business savvy woman. She was really busy all the time. As a kid, all that hard work sometimes wasn’t fun because she worked a lot, but looking back, especially as a young entrepreneur, I see how I now employ a similar work ethic. When Kristina and I started dating and then when she came into the family, she also admired my mom’s work ethic.
KRISTINA: Frank’s mom was a strong woman running a business and she was very influential in my life and ambitions. She was an immigrant who, like me, was from the Ukraine. She came to the United States with no language skills and became a very successful real estate agent. Of course, this inspired me with the confidence that I could be successful like her.
How do you maintain a solid work life balance?
FRANK: Ever since Kristina and I came together we always had a dream that we would work together. A lot of people ask how I can work with my spouse? As far as I’m concerned, I wouldn’t want it any other way. Sometimes things can get heated, but a business partner is something that goes beyond trust and so is a marriage. It’s really working well for us.
KRISTINA: I like a clear division between work and home as much as possible. We work at work and when we get home, we prioritize our family life.
What is your biggest accomplishment?
KRISTINA: Our children are our greatest accomplishment. We love to watch them learn and grow and mature, and we apply as much of our parenting to their daily life as possible. Our biggest dream is to create something for our kids to take over and that way we can keep them close to us because our biggest fear is that they’ll move away somewhere out of town or go to college far away. We’re going to try to keep them as close to us as possible.
Outside of work, what defines you as a person?
FRANK: I was the first-generation American born in my family. My parents came to America from the Soviet Union seven years before I was born. They helped me understand that there truly is such a thing as the American dream. We’re extremely grateful and blessed to live and do business in the greatest country in the world, where the American dream is still alive and well. Regardless of your cultural, religious, or economic background, if you apply yourself and dream big, you can accomplish a lot and that’s the beauty of doing business in the United States.
KRISTINA: Being from Odessa, Ukraine, I never thought that I’d be able to achieve the things that I have achieved. It also means a lot to me that my mother-in-law was a wonderful example for me.