Her Story
About Olivia
I've always melded my love for communications and design together. When I started out in LA as a coordinator for a studio in e-commerce, I helped produce photo shoots to get all the items on the site, which gave me good initial experience and helped me get my feet out here in LA. Then I freelanced for a while to understand the entertainment and marketing industries better. My goal during that time was to watch the lives of people who were really high up in all the places I was working and figure out what direction I wanted to go and what their lives were like. I worked on commercials and movies, but I didn't like that as much as working in print. I noticed that people who worked in print had a little bit more normal lives, but especially the women in movies - the men, the producers, the really high-up producers had children and outside support that allowed them normal lives, but for the women, it had to be their entire life. There was a lot of respect I had for them, but I was like, I don't think I like this enough to sacrifice my entire life, so I needed to pivot a little bit. I worked as a production assistant on photo shoots more in fashion and for print, and I really liked that. I found those sets to be more comfortable for me, and I connected with those people more. I'd originally come out to LA to work in entertainment, though I wasn't sure where I wanted to be in that, but at that point I was like maybe I want to move away from that if I want to be in print. But I ended up finding a job as a production assistant for an agency that makes movie posters, and I was like, wow, that kind of melds everything together that I was looking for. I started at the bottom rung in the production realm. My department did the technical piece of making movie posters - the artists have the ideas, and my department worked with clients to make sure every single studio gets things delivered in a specific way. We had to keep up with the ever-changing brand requirements and large internal changes. We were a pretty small agency, and it was a lot to keep up with all of those big changes during the big tech takeover of the industry. I stayed at that agency for five and a half years. Two years into that position, my boss left and basically left me her position, so all of a sudden I was at the top of the department, much younger than is typical. That agency is known as basically if you can do well at that agency, you can do well anywhere - it's the highest standard. Even though it was smaller, it was very premier. I came in and helped update the whole department because it had been running more for print instead of streaming and digital, and most things are much more digital these days. I was pretty influential in setting up our systems to work better remote because we switched to hybrid after COVID. I tried to use being young to my advantage, to be more comfortable with change and bringing in new systems. During that time, I had a lot of health issues - I have polycystic ovarian syndrome and it had really flared up. I took some time to educate myself more on that, and it became apparent that's where I was really passionate about helping women understand their health and advocate for themselves, because I needed to do that too. I became certified as a functional nutrition coach and was helping a lot of friends and family sort through their own health stuff and bridge that gap between doctors and our own personal issues. I ended up leaving the agency to do what I was already doing freelance, and then also launch my business as that functional nutrition coach specializing in women's health. I did that for about a year, fully freelance with that business. Once that business was launched and on its way, I was like okay, at least that's kind of stable and running. I don't think it will ever be something I'm able to do full time - I would love that if possible. I think that would be awesome. I would really love to eventually work in more health tech or something related where I could marry my experiences in marketing and operations with my passions for women's health. But I had some additional health issues that required me to have much better insurance, so last fall I ended up taking another position in the entertainment industry doing something similar, a little bit more senior and advanced. It's something I know how to do and I'm able to do it, and then I'm able to keep on pursuing my passion of advocating for women's health at the same time. Hopefully someday all of it will come together, but right now my life's a little bit split in half.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Olivia
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think my most significant achievement has been moving from an attitude of 'oh, please pick me, just give me anything, I'll do it, I'll figure it out' to being like, okay, here's my worth, here's who I am as a person, here's what I'm good at, here's how I can contribute to your company, but here's how I won't be treated. Being able to have that attitude and moving from a place of need and desperation and fear to recognizing that I am someone who has a lot to contribute to a company - and they are really, not to sound full of myself, but they're very lucky to have me there and contributing. I've found what I'm good at and am confident in it, and I know my worth. I love coming into places that really are looking for organization and structure, and really getting to know the place and understanding how people work, what their strengths are, and setting up systems that work well for everyone. I'm really proud that I've found what I'm good at and am confident in it. It was a very big decision to leave that tough agency where I'd survived for so long, and very scary because I didn't have a full-time something lined up. I had to really bet on myself and things working out.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I really think that you need to find something that other people don't like doing that you like doing and that needs to be done. Usually, if you can find that - if they have something that they're really passionate about, that they like doing, that they know they're good at, and that other people are like 'please do that, I have no desire to do that' - then usually their careers are much more stable and financially lucrative. I work in an industry where there's so many creatives who want to be writers, directors, actors, graphic designers, creative directors, and those are the glory of it and the true makers of the crafts, but their lives aren't as stable. They burn out pretty quickly because there's so much pressure to turn out so much creative work. I've found that a lot of those support roles are actually much more feasible, and you're able to make a better living, and you're not constantly afraid of losing your job. My sister works in regenerative agriculture and she loves calculating how much grass cows can graze on and how often, and she's traveled the world studying how goats graze in different places. She's very particular in her niche, but she's found that she has a lot of job stability because not a lot of people want to do what she's doing, and she loves it so much. I think that's really important - to find what makes you unique, and find what makes you stand out, and just find what other people hate doing that you actually really like.
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