Her Story
About Cayla
Cayla DeRegis serves as senior director of social and community at Away, marking her first in-house role at a consumer brand after gaining extensive media and agency experience. She previously worked at BuzzFeed and MBA in media-focused positions and at the agency Mischief, where her team earned Effie awards. Her entry into social media began unexpectedly in 2020 while she was operations manager at a Brooklyn yoga studio; when studios closed due to COVID, she took on social responsibilities and pursued freelance work before joining BuzzFeed. DeRegis studied civil and environmental engineering in college and worked as an engineer for two years, a background she credits with strengthening her operational and creative problem-solving skills in social media. She volunteers monthly at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary and emphasizes that joy is a requirement in her team's content creation. DeRegis attributes her professional growth to her father's advice to remain at a company only while actively learning and to follow curiosity in her career.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Cayla
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think if I said I'm always curious and a learner, and back to my dad's advice of always be learning that has really helped me try to take in as much information as I can so that I can inform myself and make the best decisions for myself moving forward.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice that I've ever received was from my dad to stay at a company if I was still learning from a person or the way the company did something and once I felt like I wasn't learning anything anymore then I should leave and start to look for a new job because I'd plateaued with the people or the company around me. It wasn't just about trying to get more money or better benefits but about are you still learning while you're there.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I think it would just be to follow your curiosity because you're going to be spending so much time of your life doing this. One thing that is awesome about social media is you do get to spend a lot of time making things that excite you making art that excites you if you do it in the right way. So follow your curiosities and follow your joy because there are definitely positions out there in this field that allow you to make really cool things aligned with your interests and then it doesn't really feel like work.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge everyone is feeling right now is creating ownable unique IP for the brands on social that feel like the only person or the only brand that could do this is our brand. This is uniquely us. Because I think there was a lot of trend chasing in the past from consumer brands and now we're moving towards what is the thing that is ownable to us that nobody else can do. I think that is definitely a challenge because I think people will and already are outsourcing their creativity to AI and so bringing the humanity back into our creative I think will be more important moving forward.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Something that I always say with my team is Joy is a Requirement. Because we make a lot of content we make a lot of things. If you're not excited to make it then the audience won't be excited to watch it so finding those things that you're excited to make that you're happy about making joy is really that serious I think.
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