Inside The Luxury Concierge For Some Of The World’s Most Recognizable Consumer Brands

Photo Credit: Luxury Concierge

There’s a gold streak in Antonio Spears’s slicked-back hair that catches the light. He’s wearing his signature year-round black turtleneck, but today, it’s finally cold enough in Los Angeles for it to make sense. Spears is a first-generation college graduate raised by a single mother in the small town of Bunnlevel, N.C. You can still hear his Southern accent when he speaks, and you can tell from his manners that, as he reveals later, his mother and grandmother raised him diligently. He dreamed of living in a place like Beverly Hills long before he knew its name and finally moved there in 2012. Little did he know that his path would converge with Ira Horowitz on that unexpected day.

Horowitz grew up in Beverly Hills, the son of a computer scientist and Renaissance historian. Now a devoted family and businessman, he’s raising three Jewish-Taiwanese kids with caution and care. The boy is a tri-sport athlete, and his girls are aspiring gymnasts and dancers. Nevertheless, the elder Horowitz can often be found rapping to ‘90s music—mainly Eminem—any chance he gets to be alone in the car. He prefers a comfy pair of Adidas track pants, providing a stark contrast to Spears’s pressed Ralph Lauren trousers. Together, this unlikely duo makes an impression, especially for the one thing they have in common: a knack for creating successful consumer brands.

For the past 15 years, City Global has developed luxury and newcomer brands from product ideation to success. The team has worked with more than 300 brands and 350 global factories, creating and selling more than 50 million items to consumers around the world. Spears states, “In an ever-evolving consumer packaged goods landscape, understanding the role of technology is crucial. This includes exploring products in 3D and augmented reality on devices like Apple’s new Pro or an iPhone, integrating products into Instagram filters, and leveraging the capabilities of Generative AI for product idea generation and concept development. Tech has become an integral component of City Global’s strategy.”

Operating within the iconic Beverly Hills Peninsula Hotel and Waldorf Astoria, Spears and Horowitz take daily inspiration from the creative capital of the world. They muse idly over steaks like Mad Men characters, keep wild hours on conference calls with their factories overseas, and take meetings with brands. Spears says he never dreamed this would be within arm’s reach for a kid like him growing up.

“City Global is a unique collective of executives, merging the passion of a creative agency with the economics of a global supply chain company. One of our clients, a recent winner on ‘Shark Tank,’ received substantial funding and now faces the challenge of scaling up operations. They need assistance with managing international operations, including sampling, mass production, quality control, and navigating global logistics and customs,” Horowitz explains.

For sourcing abroad, they’ve built a product development luxury concierge service used by many of the world’s most recognizable consumer brands. Spears says, “Guiding those brands through the innovation process around specific product needs is the cornerstone of our business expertise.” The company ensures the myriad complexities of factories, logistics, and quality assurance are made easy for each brand they work with. Custom goods may seem to appear out of nowhere; however, they note that knowledge, connections, and perseverance are required to get it all right, which is why they burn the midnight oil to master their craft.

City Global’s clients span from spirits, entertainment, luxury and fashion, to hospitality and nonprofits looking to expand their global footprint. While the company builds consumer retail brands from scratch, it also handles branded merchandise for global brands looking to spread awareness in a custom, high-quantity manner. Movie theaters across America are enhancing the superhero movie experience with themed promotional items like popcorn buckets and drink cups adorned with superheroes. Additionally, branded merchandise is available in major retailers like Walmart and Target. Whether a top-shelf spirit brand needs tens of thousands of promotional items in bars and restaurants across the U.S.; a five-star hotel or airline needs luxury robes, slippers, and amenity kits for its penthouse suite guests or first-class passengers; or an A-list musician needs merchandise for every tour stop, City Global builds out brands’ global footprints through design, product development, and global brand expansion.

Spears and Horowitz keep their roster close to the vest for good reason, as many of their clients appreciate a certain level of privacy, they explain. However, their work is visible to the masses every day. City Global has invested in and helped build consumer brands exceeding $240 million in retail in the last decade.

The duo attributes their success to their dovetailed attitudes toward business: Horowitz brings steady, impartial direction, assembling a diverse and creative group of executives taking products from concept to market. Self-made Spears brings unflappable leadership, directing consumers boldly into a post-pandemic world of global trends and product/brand marketability.

The duo says they focus on underrepresented founders and are passionate about using their combined knowledge and expertise in the venture capital arena, investing in startups with ideas that advance humanity forward to, as they put it, “bring on a new renaissance age.”

Written in partnership with Tom White