Sona Movsesian

Sona Movsesian is an American author and podcast co-host who spent more than a decade as Conan O'Brien's personal assistant and became, improbably, a public figure in her own right.

She was born in California to Armenian American parents and worked in page and production roles at NBC before joining O'Brien's staff in 2009, shortly before the Tonight Show period and the departure that followed it. She stayed through the move to TBS and into the podcast era.

The public persona came out of a running joke between them, developed on television and then extended on the podcast Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend, where she is a co-host. She plays the lazy incompetent and he plays the oppressive employer, and the bit works because both parties are visibly fond of each other and neither is performing the version of themselves that the joke requires.

The World's Worst Assistant, published in 2022, is that routine extended to book length. It contains how-to chapters on napping at work and watching television at your desk, tips on becoming unfireable, and stories from thirteen years of the job. O'Brien wrote the foreword. It was an instant New York Times bestseller and was named among the best comedy books of the year by Vulture.

Underneath the jokes is a considered argument against grind culture, made by somebody who watched an industry consume assistants. Her stated position, when she stops performing, is that you should serve your own needs at work and try to work with people who are good and funny.

She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and twin sons.