Maya Manelis
| Maya Manelis | |
|---|---|
| Executive Assistant | |
 Maya Manelis in 2034 | |
| Chief Executive Officer Palatine Management LLC | |
| In Office | 1 Feb 2034 - present |
| Principal | Julian Kao |
| Preceded by | TBD |
| Succeeded by | Incumbent |
| Salary | $1,152,560 (2034) |
| Chief of Staff of the Household Office Palatine Management LLC | |
| In Office | 8 Jan 2030 - 31 Jan 2034 |
| Principal | Julian Kao |
| CEO | Carmen Messina |
| Deputy | June Tanaka (2033 - 2034) Emma Gravdahl (2030 - 2033) |
| Preceded by | Nicole Hertz |
| Succeeded by | June Tanaka |
| Chief of Staff to the CEO Minerva Holdings | |
| In Office | 15 May 2026 - 7 Jan 2030 |
| Principal | Julian Kao (Chief Executive Officer) |
| Department | Corporate Office |
| Preceded by | Jade McLaughlin |
| Succeeded by | Melanie Allard |
| Direct Reports | TBD |
| Personal Information | |
| Born | 27 May 2000 (age 34) Clapham, London United Kingdom |
| Nationality |  United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Support Staff |
| Height | 168 cm (5'6") |
| Breasts | 32B |
| Dress Size | 2-4 |
| Hair | Brown |
| Eyes | Brown |
| Education | Cambridge University (BA) |
This person is a member of the executive staff of Palatine Management LLC, the single-family office of Minerva Holdings Chairman Julian Kao.
Maya Anthea Manelis (born 21 July 2001) is a British socialite, political activist, nonprofit executive and former model who has been employed since February 2034 as the Chief Operating Officer of Revival UK, a non-profit organization whose aim is to promote political change in the United Kingdom. The organization played a crucial role in driving popular support towards the Liberal Democratic Party in the 2033 General Election, which resulted in the Conservative Party returning to power after having spent the previous 9 years in opposition.
Manelis is known to have very close ties to American oligarch Julian Kao. From 2030 to 2034, she was employed as the Chief of Staff of the Palatine Household Office, which oversees Kao's personal estate, including his private harem, the House of Juno. During her tenure, Manelis worked closely with Kao's wife Hannah Hazeldon to oversee a major expansion of the House of Juno in November 2033, resulting in an increase in its number of Consorts from 24 to 36. In June 2034, Manelis was elected Secretary-General of the Vanda Sorority, an exclusive women's secret society comprising former Consorts and staff of the House of Juno.
Prior to this, Manelis served as Kao's Chief of Staff at Minerva Holdings from 2026 to 2029 when he was the company's CEO. In 2028, she was tasked by Kao to coordinate Minerva's $73 million acquisition of UnionCast, a leading talent agency which had more than 1,000 podcast hosts under representation. That same year, she also coordinated Kao's $4 billion acquisition of English Premier League football team Chelsea.
During her tenure at Minerva, Manelis is also believed to have played a key role in driving the group's political influence throughout the world, including its funding and support of the Patriot Party in the 2028 and 2032 United States elections and its partnership with Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani of Qatar.
"Maya Manelis is a devastatingly effective fixer and operative - the pretty face with a lethal touch. She has been Julian Kao's secret weapon for years, and the evidence suggests that there can be little doubt that she has played a key role in helping him drive populist revolts which have toppled governments in multiple countries. It would be quite surprising if she herself doesn't hold a high public office at some point in the next decade."
Rob WainwrightJournalist, The Guardian
11 May 2034
Manelis began her career as an associate at the American strategy consulting firm Bain & Company after graduating from Cambridge University with a first-class honors degree in politics, philosophy and economics. In 2023, she joined the private bank Banque Saint-Germain, and is believed to have begun a sexual relationship with Kao in late 2023, following which she was promoted to Vice President. In June 2024, she joined the Minerva Holdings corporate office as an Executive Assistant, working on strategy, communications and risk management.
Between 2018 to 2024, Manelis was a part-time photography model represented by Elite Models. She has appeared in the pages of Vogue, L'Officiel and Cosmopolitan.
Early Life
.jpg){kind=link}
Maya Manelis was born on 21 July 2000 in London to Giannis Manelis and Helen Thornton. Her father was a Greek-Cypriot immigrant who moved to the United Kingdom in the 1980s. Her mother was a nurse with the National Health Service. The couple got divorced in 2007, and thereafter, Manelis was raised by her mother. In 2009, Thornton married Lucas Holtby, a tradesman and part-time model who was four years her junior, and in 2010, Manelis' half-brother, Grant Holtby-Thornton, was born.
Manelis attended the Swanlea School in Whitechapel. In 2018, she completed her A-levels in Economics, History and English, and scored two A* and one A grade. She applied to read politics, philosophy and economics at the University of Cambridge. In September 2019, she enrolled at St John's College, Cambridge.
Modeling Work
Manelis began modeling part-time while in her final year of high school, initially doing photoshoots for e-commerce brands. In January 2019, she began modeling for the fashion website ASOS, and later that year, she was signed by Elite Models.
In 2020, she did photoshoots for a number of brands, including M&S, All Saints and Superdry. In 2021, she was featured in the new digital catalog for Selfridges & Co, and appeared in Cosmopolitan. In 2022, she appeared in the pages of Vogue and L'Officiel.
Undergraduate Studies at Cambridge
Manelis moved to Cambridge to begin her studies at St John's College in August 2019. While she was deeply immersed in her studies, she quickly found that she was not suited to the student social scene. Instead, she began traveling down to London, where she would attend parties and social events with her fellow models. Many of these parties were hosted at exclusive venues, and were attended by prominent individuals within London's social scene.
In March 2020, Manelis entered into a relationship with Bahraini businessman Abdul Jalil Ashgar, who was married and 25 years her senior. Ashgar provided her with a luxury three-bedroom apartment in Knightsbridge, where she quarantined herself during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In February 2021, she traveled to Bahrain and spent two months there, living with his wife and family. In April that year, she ended the relationship with Ashgar because he was pressing her into marriage. She reflected in an 2030 interview with The Independent that this was "not the future [she] had envisioned", because she wanted to finish her studies and pursue a career of her own. That experience also taught her that she "needed a man with progressive attitudes about women and their careers".
From August to December 2021, Manelis had a brief relationship with Chinese celebrity actor Leo Wu. She says that this relationship "opened her eyes to Chinese culture" and "inspired [her] to learn more about it". From June to August 2022, she participated in a student exchange program at Shanghai Jiaotong University.
Career
.jpg){kind=link}
Bain & Company (2022 - 2023)
In May 2022, Manelis graduated from Cambridge with a first class honors degree. She joined the management consulting firm Bain & Company in June, working out of their offices in London. During her brief stint at Bain, she was part of their private equity practice group, and had the opportunity to work with global PE firms including Blackrock, TPG and SoftBank.
Banque Saint-Germain (2023 - 2024)
In June 2023, Manelis left Bain & Company to join private bank Banque Saint-Germain, initially as an associate in its regional strategy and risk management group. In this capacity, she had the opportunity to work with clients such as Great British Energy and Fokker Technologies. During this time, she also worked directly with Asma al-Assad, the wife of recently-deposed President of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, to move her assets to offshore jurisdictions including Panama and Mauritius.
In December 2023, Manelis met Julian Kao, the CEO of Minerva Holdings, which owned a majority stake in BSG. She began a sexual relationship with him, and he expressed interest in making her one of his Consorts. However, Manelis declined to do so because she was already 23 years old, and did not want to join his private harem, the House of Juno, only to have to leave upon attaining the age of 25. Instead, she told Kao that she was content to continue their relationship while remaining in her current role. In April 2024, she was promoted to the rank of Vice President.
.jpg){kind=link}
Minerva Holdings
Executive Assistant (2024 - 2026)
In June 2024, Manelis joined Minerva Holdings as an Executive Assistant in the Corporate Office, reporting directly to Kao. She relocated to New York City in order to take up this role. Initially, she was tasked with coordinating his office's work in strategy and communications, and subsequently was also added to his corporate risk management team.
Because of her outstanding performance in her role, Kao appointed Manelis as his principal advisor for communications in January 2025, placing her in charge of steering and overseeing the work of Minerva's public relations and corporate communications teams.
In June 2025, Manelis was part of a team that executed Kao's acquisition of a 13% stake in English Premier League club Chelsea, buying out Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss. In November 2025, Manelis served as Kao's principal representative in establishing a joint venture with retired football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo to acquire Saudi Pro League club Al-Nassr from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund.
In February 2026, Manelis served as Kao's principal representative and personal liaison in negotiating Minerva's involvement in the newly-established Sanafir Island special administrative zones in Saudi Arabia and the Pensiangan special administrative zone in Sabah, Malaysia. As a result of her masterful handling of these negotiations, Minerva secured significant public-private partnerships which gave it strong advantages in both territories.
.jpg){kind=link}
Chief of Staff to the CEO (2026 - 2029)
Manelis was named as the incoming Chief of Staff to the CEO on 1 March 2026, succeeding the outgoing Jade McLaughlin. Her appointment was to take effect on 15 May 2026.
Amongst Manelis' most pressing priorities upon assuming the role of of Chief of Staff was to reorganize the Corporate Office staff. Executive Assistants Mallory Kong and Carolyn Chapman, who were the Office's principal liaisons for finance and investor relations respectively, retained their roles, while Emily Tallis and Paige Kleeman were released. Kong was given the additional responsibility of being the liaison for Asia.
Additionally, Manelis hired Natasha Cade, Lauren Farrer, Melanie Allard and Saniya Najjar as Executive Assistants to serve as liaisons for North America, Africa, Europe and MENA respectively, while Ellie Bronsema, Hera Kwon and Christine Lorenzen were hired as Personal Assistants. She instituted new rules for all Corporate Office staff, which replaced the previous rules that had been set in place by McLaughlin. The new rules included a requirement to send nude selfies daily and to wear anal plugs at all times while at work. In addition, Manelis introduced a strict orgasm control regime, prohibiting all staff members from having orgasms at any time unless they had obtained prior permission from either Kao or Manelis.
In December 2026, Manelis acted as Kao's personal liaison in attending the re-opening of the Louvre Museum in Paris following the 8/6 Paris bombings. On behalf of Minerva Holdings, Manelis presented the museum with a €3 million donation.
.jpg){kind=link}
In January 2027, Manelis, Cade and Farrer worked behind the scenes to establish Reset USA, a political action committee whose stated objective was to expose corruption and cronyism within the Republican Party. Kao donated $50 million to this PAC.
From February to December 2027, Reset USA worked relentlessly to campaign negatively against Vice President JD Vance. The PAC was behind the leaking of two audio recordings of Vance telling donor Stephen A. Schwarzman that "the average American is actually incredibly dumb", and telling retired United States Senator Joe Manchin that Republican voters were "mostly simple-minded sheep who are easy to trigger". Despite Vance's repeated apologies, the public outrage at his remarks eventually forced him to suspend his presidential campaign.
In April 2027, Manelis acted as Kao's proxy in making a donation of ₤20 million to the Liberal Democrats in the United Kingdom. The funding went into expanding the party's grassroots organization as well as its digital media capabilities, which laid the groundwork for its surge in vote share in the 2028 and 2033 General Elections.
Between July to November 2027, Manelis, Allard and Kwon were part of a special coordinating team to oversee Minerva Holdings' acquisitions of The New York Post and The Sun from News Corporation for a combined $1.8 billion. In January 2028, Manelis personally oversaw Minerva's $73 million acquisition of UnionCast, an agency representing over 1,000 podcast hosts. These assets would later be merged into Circulation, Minerva's newly-established media subsidiary.
In June 2028, Manelis acted as Kao's principal representative in negotiating the $4 billion buyout of Chelsea Football Club, which led to him being the club's sole owner. In a media interview in 2031, she described this as a "defining highlight" of her time at Minerva:
"The buyout of Chelsea will always be a defining highlight of my career - not just because of the profile of the club and what it has gone on to achieve in recent years, but also because Mr. Kao has been a Chelsea fan since he was a young boy. Becoming the club's owner, and seeing it become a dominant force in European football, is literally a dream come true for him."
In November 2028, Manelis traveled with Kao to Los Angeles to meet with President-elect Gavin Newsom. According to media reports, Newsom thanked Kao profusely for the role he played in ensuring Democratic victories in the White House, Senate and House, and asked him for his recommendations for cabinet appointments. Kao reportedly replied that he would like to see Thomas Runyan as Secretary of State, and Andrew Yang as Secretary of the Treasury.
In January 2029, Manelis traveled with Kao to Cuba to meet with President Marino Murillo to discuss economic reforms. Following this visit, it was announced that Minerva would be acquiring ETECSA, Cuba's telecoms monopoly, for $10 billion.
.jpg){kind=link}
From March to April 2029, Manelis served as Minerva's liaison overseeing the initial public offering of Circulation Inc. She played an instrumental role in the appointment of Evercore as advisors and prime underwriters for the IPO. The IPO took place on 3 May 2029, raising more than $5 billion in fresh capital, and giving Circulation a market capitalization of $36.4 billion.
In July 2029, Manelis visited the Maldives to spend personal time with Kao at the MANA Resort Maalifushi. Also present were Kao's wife Jessica Stroud, Consorts Adriana Zayas, Stella Long, Celina Chen and Yana Rabiot, and Household Chief of Staff Nicole Hertz. During this trip, Kao informed Manelis that Hertz was due to leave her position at the end of the year, and that he could not trust anyone else to assume the position. Separately, Stroud told Manelis during a private meeting that she greatly appreciated her deep devotion to Kao, and that she would be needed to "stabilize and consolidate" his personal household and family office ahead of some "major expansion plans in the medium-term".
On 1 November 2029, Kao announced that Executive Assistant Melanie Allard had been chosen to succeed Manelis as Chief of Staff to the CEO at Minerva Holdings, and that her appointment would be effective on 1 January 2030. Manelis spent the month of November handing over her duties to Allard in order to ensure a smooth transition. In December, she began to spend time at Palatine Hill to understudy Hertz and gradually take over her duties, while also getting to know her new staff. On 29 December, Manelis moved into Palatine Hill.
Treatment of Carolyn Chapman (2026 - 2029)
On 16 September 2026, Manelis discovered that Carolyn Chapman, one of the Executive Assistants in the Minerva Holdings Corporate Office, had started a romantic relationship without approval.