Our Industry Profile takes a look at some of the professionals working across the advertising, adtech, marketing and media sector in Australia. It aims to shed light on the varying roles and companies across the buzzing industry.
Lizi Pritchard: director at Nature Sydney
Time in current role: Four months as director, but nearly four years at Nature since joining at the inception of the Sydney office.
How would you describe what the company does? We’re a strategic insights consultancy with expertise in quantative-based evidence. We help our clients inform their tomorrow, while also trying to make tomorrow better for our team, community and the environment.
What do I do day to day? The core parts of my role involve helping clients tackle and solve a whole range of business issues as well as leading my amazing team.
Beyond that, I co-lead our B Corp Committee, which is in place to make sure the business dedicates the right time and resources to team, community and environment.
All in all, it still means I’m often rolling up my sleeves and getting among the work…quite literally as I’m currently making preparations for our Sydney office move.
Define your job in one word:
Enriching.
I got into my industry because:
I did a Masters in Forensic Psychology which was heavily research based, leading me to look for careers where I could leverage those skills. Academia was an option – but didn’t exactly thrill me – so the world of commercial research and consulting caught my eye with its fast-paced environment, team work and strategic thinking.
What’s the biggest industry wide challenge you’d like to see tackled?
Closing the gap between research and reality wherever possible. The opportunities to do this are increasing thanks to leaps in technology and innovation, but there needs to be greater openness from agencies and clients to test and learn together.
Previous companies:
Kantar (then Millward Brown).
Notable campaigns/initiatives:
I had a key role in Nature’s successful B Corp certification and now co-leading our ongoing efforts. That being said, I’m also eager to find innovative approaches to things, but the nature of our work means we often can’t talk about a lot of clients. One that I can talk about is a partnership with Foxtel Media that I lead from the Nature side, where we designed an approach to understand the impacts of a multi-media campaign on brand salience and consideration in order to deliver creative and detailed media learnings for future campaigns.
Who has been a great mentor to you?
My late aunt was a great mentor to me. I spent a lot of time with her growing up and was always inspired by her way of doing things. Professionally, she was very successful and headed a department in a very male-dominated industry. It was the way in which she spoke about her team, cared for their well-being and invested her time in them that really resonated with me. Outside of work, she was also extremely caring for her friends and family yet fiercely independent at the same time, and I think that’s really rubbed off on me.
Words of advice:
our world never stands still, so you need to join in for the ride or get left behind!
If I wasn’t doing this for a living:
I’d be flexing my psychology muscles somewhere probably as it’s still a huge interest of mine.
My philosophy is:
Get shit done (and then kick back with a marg).
My favourite advert is:
The Guinuess Surfer ad which aired in the UK back in the 1990s. I was pretty young when that came out but I’ve never forgotten the visuals, music and voiceover… or the brand!
Subscriptions:
Quite a few! For music I have YouTube Premium, YouTube Music and Beatport to feed my bedroom DJ hobby. Then there’s Netflix, Prime and Binge to feed my passion for true crime; Uber Pass so me and my sausage dog can get discounts off our travels and snacks; and finally, Vitable to stay healthy
In five years time I'll be:
I’ve really fallen in love with the Sydney way of life since moving here five years ago, so I have no doubt I’ll still be here five years from now. I’m excited to see how much the Nature Sydney office has grown by then as we’ve got big ambitions and some exciting things in the pipeline. For starters, we’re moving into a brand new office space in the next month which gives us the room we need for the team we’ve become and for even more growth. Who knows, maybe in five years we’ll be trading up again!
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