Meet Anya Liddiard, our primary Marketing Manager on LA Stormwater, whose life trajectory followed the question: What can I contribute to make the world a little better? A native Russian who holds advanced degrees in Economics and Mass Communications from Virginia Commonwealth University, Anya later relocated to the West Coast, even though she initially didn’t like the weather in California. Today, you can find her enjoying California’s splendors with her family and upcycling abandoned furniture. “I’m that person that drives and picks up interesting items off the street to repurpose them. It is my way to consume less,” Anya says.
Her passion for sustainability and cause marketing has been successfully harnessed while working at her previous marketing and advertising jobs with NBC and E! Networks, Tesla, and Hyundai. Today, she brings her experience and her belief that doing good is good business to SGA.
Here’s what she has learned along the way:
I come from the fast world of traditional advertising and I have always been driven to find that component to do good in this world. Throughout my journey I have developed a certain approach to my life and my work.
Go Beyond Consumerism: Encourage people to buy more than the product and get behind a positive cause. While working at Hyundai, I was challenged to ask deeper questions. How can someone benefit from this company rather than just motivating people to buy our product?
Go Beyond Promotion: Promote positive behavior change. Find ways to challenge yourself and change people’s behavior for the benefit of all. Search for patterns and opportunities to solve brands’ business problems by adding value to the world, even if it’s as small as motivating people at work to use one paper towel at a time.
Go Beyond Messaging: Make people think differently. Find ways to help brands and consumers prove who they are through the actions they take. This could mean creating meaningful partnerships, acting on a cause, creating inspiring ideas of social change or simply giving reusable water bottles for people’s birthdays (been there, done that!).
Above all, the most important approach to my life lies in my daughter. I began Russian in the Park in Long Beach to immerse my daughter in her culture while getting families together to celebrate Russian culture. As a mother, I am lovingly driven by the needs of my daughter and hope to keep her interested in her culture and language.