Season 1 Ep. 4: Paving the Way with Alivia Roberts
Listen to how Alivia Roberts embraced every opportunity given to her as an African American woman in political communications.
Bio: Alivia Roberts, a native of Shannon, MS, was appointed by the Biden-Harris Administration to serve as the Deputy White House Liaison at the U.S. Department of Justice in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. Prior to her political appointment, she worked on the Biden-Harris Presidential Campaign as a Paid Media Associate, focusing on implementing strategies to increase African American voter turn-out in the 2020 elections using paid media advertisements, and as the Deputy Press Secretary for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce where she assisted in executing communication strategies to amplify the Committee’s political agenda. She is graduated as a Wolcott Scholar from The George Washington University with a Master of Public Administration and as summa cum laude with her Bachelor of Arts in Communication from Mississippi State University. Alivia is an active member of the Mississippi Society of Washington DC's board, the Junior League of Washington, and Kappa Delta Sorority’s National Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. Alivia is the founder of The Dream Keeper Initiative, a mentorship program to empower young girls and teens to overcome life challenges through education, character development, and sisterhood.
SK: Welcome, Alivia. [00:02:01][110.8]
Alivia: [00:02:03] Thank you, I'm so excited to be joining you today. I think The Ladies Who Lead Podcast is such a wonderful opportunity to just show the world what women are made of and what we can do. So I'm so excited to be joining you today.
SK: [00:02:15] Awesome, we're so excited to have you! So I like to start the podcast off by asking how are you thriving and how are you surviving this week?
It's just a fun way to kind of get things moving, so I'll kick us off. As you know, the pandemic that we're all facing, COVID has just been so hard for everyone, and I'm just mentally ready personally for everyone to get vaccinated and for all businesses to open back up. I'm just really looking forward to that day, and I think we will all mentally, physically feel our best when that day happens. So, I'm just trying to be ever-present and mindful. However, I am proud of myself for getting up, you know, each day and putting my best foot forward. That's really how I've been currently surviving. You know, I'm slowly making my house into a home, and that's been a really great passion project for me to kind of throw myself into. It's just been energizing and encouraging to see different spaces transform and feel more like home. That's how I'm currently surviving and thriving this week. How about you, Alivia? [00:03:28][73.4]
Alivia: [00:03:30] I'm thriving right now. This past week, I had an opportunity to speak to some high school students here in Washington, D.C., about Broadcast Journalism. And I got to speak also to some Girl Scout troops about business etiquette. And I really, really love investing back into the next generation. And so that added a lot of energy to my week, and that was very fulfilling for me. How am I surviving? The weather in D.C. surprisingly has been a little bit warmer than normal, and so I have really taken advantage of the weekend and have been walking a lot outside and hanging with a couple of friends. Socially distant, of course, grabbing lunch, you know, having a little picnic, which has really helped with mental health for me, just to be able to enjoy the outdoors in a city. [00:04:19][49.9]
Alivia: [00:04:20] We're having a beautiful Spring day, so it's been nice to kind of get outside and see different colors and things blooms.
SK: Good for you! Well, let's just dive in. Tell me, how did you go from a girl from Shannon, Mississippi to a woman taking on Washington, D.C.? [00:04:37][16.7]
Alivia: [00:04:38] Yes. So I'm so glad you asked that because oftentimes people don't even know where Shannon Mississippi is, and I love to tell people I am that girl from Shannon. But I will say that I ended up in D.C. based on some previous experiences. I started visiting D.C. through the Congressional Award Program in 4-H and was visiting D.C. During my eleventh-grade year in high school, I was invited to receive my Congressional Gold Medal. At that time, I had the opportunity to meet with congressional members who were investing in the program, as well as I ran into some other Mississippians who were in D.C. working in it at that moment. I said, you know, I could end up in a career here in D.C. and this lady who was from Mississippi also was working in communications. Immediately after I interacted with her and got to meet some of the congressmen and I was like, You know, I think I'm going to change my career trajectory and I want to pursue a career in political communications and come work on Capitol Hill one day.
I have to stress, having a good village is so important because I have several family members, mentors, and people who were supporting me. They were the main encourages and those were the people who helped provide the resources and tools to help me launch my career in D.C. I have to give a lot of credit to my village, but I have to also give credit to the Congressional Medal Program for introducing me and exposing me to careers in Washington, D.C. [00:06:10][92.3]
SK: [00:06:11] WOW, that's awesome! Explain to our listeners, who may not be aware, what is anWhite House liaison and what does your day-to-day look like? [00:06:20][8.8]
Alivia: [00:06:21] Yeah, so the Deputy White House liaison role is a political appointment, which each administration or presidential administration has 4,000 political appointments across all of the governmental or federal government agencies that they can appoint for. My position is at the Department of Justice, and I'm serving as a liaison between the White House and the department to ensure that the agency's needs are being met, as well as just working to seek out diverse candidates who are interested in serving as well at the Department of Justice. I have a lot of opportunities to meet other people and meet diverse candidates as well. I have now taken on more of a role in helping the public affairs department. So now I'm getting a chance to help strategize what are the best ways to engage with minority media outlets so they know the great work of the Department of Justice. [00:07:14][52.8]
SK: [00:07:16] So why do you feel it is important to have diversity and representation on Capitol Hill and to be able to amplify those voices?
Alivia: [00:07:25] When I was working or when I was interning on Capitol Hill, I noticed there weren't very many African-American faces and especially African-American women working in communications.
So, I saw the need, which made me get even more serious about pursuing this career in communication. But, you know, because of the very few minorities who are in this field, it's so important that we are using our platforms to tell the stories to our communities. Because if there's no representation, then that means no one is there to prioritize the needs of the community, as well as make sure the community is understanding what's going on. We are the best advocate for ourselves as being women. Being an African-American woman working in D.C., I think that's somewhere we can have a real impact as being able to use our platforms, working on Capitol Hill, working communications, working on the legislative and policy side, and use that to be an advocate for our communities. So like I said, no one else understands what our culture needs. Our community needs as much as we do to ourselves. [00:08:27][62.3]
SK: [00:08:28] So tell us about your experience serving as the paid media associate for President Biden's presidential campaign. What lessons did you learn throughout that experience? [00:08:38][10.3]
Alivia: [00:08:41] That was such a cool experience. Growing up, I never, ever pictured myself working on a presidential campaign. But you know, as you continue throughout your career and you're exposed to different opportunities, doors sometimes just open up. This was a wonderful door that I'm grateful for because it was such an eye-opening and rewarding experience during the campaign. I was working very long hours, you know, waking up at 6:30 a.m. and working until one or two o'clock in the morning then doing it all over again.
During that time, I realized, you know how much work I could take on at once and how much better of a multi-tasker I became. I found it very fascinating to just see all of the moving parts of a presidential campaign and how they all come together to send out this one message of why this candidate should be selected as President and their priorities. My particular position was working in media and I was focusing on African-American paid media and paid media, basically all of the ads that you see across television, what you hear on the radio, and what you see on social media. It was really cool because I was focusing on the African-American community, and got to see in the end how much it contributed to the high voter turnout within the African-American community.
It was pretty cool to hear people say, You know, I saw this ad or I saw that ad and it was an ad that I was able to help work on. The biggest lesson that I learned throughout that entire experience was to embrace every opportunity that's presented to you as an opportunity to grow and to learn from others. While networking, they say it's who you know that helps get you to where you are. Networking is so important, but what's more important is to build genuine relationships with the people that you are meeting along the way.
At some point, you will also be able to help them in whatever they're trying to achieve or accomplish. I loved every moment of working on the presidential campaign. I may decide to do it again in the future, but I encourage anyone. If you're interested at all in working in political communications like it's a wonderful opportunity to grow and see how the entire system operates when it comes to working on a campaign. [00:11:01][140.0]
SK: [00:11:02] Yeah, being able to see your hard work pay off for voter turnout like you mentioned like that has to be pretty cool and rewarding. Wow- the methods, the tactics that we took, it did make a difference.
SK: [00:11:20] I have to mention this because I've known you for a while, Alivia, and you were in pageants growing up. What was that experience like? Do you feel pageants helped shape your worldview or prepared you for that next season in life?
Alivia: [00:11:38] I have enjoyed every moment competing in the Miss America organizations and pageants in general. I have to give a lot of credit to the experience that I had within it because a lot of the life skills that I have now, I gained by competing in the Miss America organization. A lot of scholarships I received were awarded through the Miss America Scholarship, the Miss America organization. I have to say that when you have to prepare for the interview portion, it is giving you life skills. It prepares you for any interview that you will be faced with throughout your career. Competing in physical fitness, I learned the importance of working out and eating a well-balanced diet.
My favorite was the talent portion, you know, being a dancer, as you know, SK, it takes a lot of practice and it takes a lot of poise, and so that is a skill that I think you can use throughout your entire life. Miss America's motto is preparing great women for the world and preparing the world for great women, and I think that is exactly what it has done.
It's taught me how to write that resume, how to interview successfully, how to network and meet the right people well and make sure you're in the right room at the right time. So I had to give the pageant a lot of credit for the skills that I acquired this far. [00:12:57][78.7]
SK: [00:12:57] I absolutely love that, and I feel like that's a testament to your hard work and your ability to think on your feet and to be able to do a lot of different things. I think pageants have so much purpose and so much value in creating women to go out there and conquer the world.
How do you define success? Everyone defines it differently, but I like to ask this question to every lady that I interview because I feel like we all have our different metrics for success. What is success for you? [00:13:23][25.8]
Alivia: [00:13:26] Yeah, so success to me is, you know, setting a personal goal, creating a game plan or strategy to reach that goal. Then I think once you've reached your point of excellence for yourself, I don't think anyone else can set that point of excellence for you. But once you have reached that point of excellence for yourself, that's when you are truly accomplished and you've reached your point of success.
So for me, I am a list maker and I like to check those boxes off of my list. And so every single time that I am checking a box off I am one step closer to my personal goal. I feel like I'm reaching my point of success. It's setting that goal, setting a point of excellence for yourself, and then reaching that point and for you, that means you have reached that point of success. [00:14:11][45.2]
SK: [00:14:13] Nice, I have to agree with that. So what is the best piece of advice that you've received and how have you applied it to your current life and your way of thinking? [00:14:22][9.2]
Alivia: [00:14:24] Yeah I've been thinking about this lately, too, just because, you know, working in the political world and changing from one career to the next career can be very challenging, and sometimes you have to reflect on the advice that people have shared with you. And I want to share two pieces. One was from Dr. David Beckley. He's my cousin and the former President of Russ College in Holly Springs, Mississippi. And he said, Alivia, don't let anyone tell you what you can or cannot do, but let this be your choice because you have to live with that decision. And he said because I was coming from small-town Mississippi and it really hit home for me because you don't see every day an African-American female working in political communications from Mississippi.
He told me, you know, it doesn't matter that you come from a small town, it's how you apply yourself and the decisions that you make are only going to impact me. He was so right. So I use that as a reminder all of the time, no ceiling is too hard to reach or no glass is too hard to break.
The second piece of advice I think that has stuck with me lately is that Karen Andre, who works currently in the White House, said to pass it forward. You hear that all the time, you know, pass it forward. But when she said it recently, it hit me differently. And what she meant by that is like, you know, people have invested in you, and now it's time for you to pass it forward. I think now it's my duty as a young woman working freshly in my career to start investing in the next generation so that they too can see what their options and what the possibilities are as they're pursuing their college careers or even about to embark upon a new career. I think it's now my responsibility to pass it forward. [00:16:14][110.3]
SK: [00:16:15] Yes, I'm here for it! I love both of those pieces of advice because they ring true, and it's also just something to be mindful of throughout life. No matter what stage of life that you're in, right? I think we're only as good as the people that we surround ourselves with. As long as you're empowering others and investing in others, like, that's how you really build something great!
Now it's time for The Leading Ladies We Love, a rapid-fire game. Are you ready for this, Alivia? [00:16:48][32.3]
SK: [00:16:55]So I will share adjectives that best describe different types of women, and this is an opportunity for you to shout them out. So are you ready to do this yet? Alright, so the first one I'm going to say is leader. [00:17:11][16.0]
Alivia: [00:17:15] Michelle Obama, I mean, she's leading the When We All Vote effort right now to try to register and change the culture around voting. So Michelle Obama [00:17:23][8.3]
SK: [00:17:26] The next word is eloquent. [00:17:26][0.9
Alivia: [00:17:29] Camille Young, she graduated from my high school in Shannon, and I think everything she says is very eloquent and she fills up the room she's in. It's just her energy. You can tell her presence is there and she's so graceful in her interactions with you and is so genuine. [00:17:50][21.0]
SK: [00:17:52] Great, the next word is bold. [00:17:52][0.9]
Alivia: [00:17:54] Oh, Ashley Etienne. This is a lady who I consider to be a mentor of mine here in D.C., and I think that she has such bold ideas. She has a bold voice when she's in the room, and she's just a woman who is very strong and powerful in her career. [00:18:13][18.6]
SK: [00:18:14] The next word is real. [00:18:15][0.7]
Alivia: [00:18:24] I want to say, Ashley Allison, who's another woman who I really look up to here in D.C. as well. She just tells you how it is, and I appreciate that. You always need someone to lay the land for you and when you're pursuing a career to just be like, you know, here's what you should be thinking about. She always keeps it real. [00:18:46][21.2]
SK: [00:18:47] Yeah, I love that. The last word is supportive. [00:18:49][2.2]
Alivia: [00:18:52] Oh, I have to say my mother on this one, Teresa Roberts. Oh and let me also shout out my dad. My mother is one of the most supportive people. It doesn't matter what time of day I call her, she will make a way to provide and give me any answers or as close to the answer that she can that I need. So my mother, Teresa Roberts. [00:19:14][22.8]
SK: Well that is the end of The Leading Ladies We Love, rapid-fire game. Great job! Before we go, can you please share your shameless plug so our listeners can connect with you? [00:19:21][5.2]
Alivia: [00:19:22] Yeah, so you can connect with me on Instagram. I am at Alivia_Roberts. Give me a follow, and I would be excited to give you a follow back.
SK: [00:19:46] Thank you so much for taking the time to kind of share your truth and where you're at, and I am just so excited to see what's to come.
Alivia: [00:19:53] Yes. Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad that you were highlighting other women for your podcast. I think it's so important that we can see what each other are doing and see how we make and follow behind some other women's footsteps, as well as create our own paths using what we learn from other women. So I thank you for taking the time to invest in this podcast. I think it's such important work and such great work that you're doing. [00:20:18][24.7]
SK: [00:20:19] Oh thanks, Alivia. Thank you for listening to another episode of The Ladies Who Lead Podcast. Until next time, I'm SK Vaughn [00:20:19][0.0]
