Alum
Erica Anderson
CEO of her own candle company
Erica Anderson, BAJ’06, CEO of The New Savant
“I started at Indiana University in 2002, and I always knew I wanted to go the journalism path. I delivered newspapers when I was a kid, I wrote for the school newspaper, and storytelling and communication was a throughline of my interests throughout youth and now in my career.
I graduated from IU, and I moved to Washington, D.C. I had a real interest in political journalism, so I ended up getting a job with MTV News covering the 2008 election as a citizen journalist. It introduced me to Twitter, and I started using it as a way to engage and get story ideas.
I ended up pitching myself to CBS News in New York. I sent a blind email to an executive. He got back to me within an hour and said, ‘Actually, Katie Couric wants to hire someone just like you.’ So I went up to New York City the next day, and I explained to her in a five-minute interview that journalists needed to understand the new tools, that the internet was changing the game for journalism. She hired me on the spot.
So that ended up getting Twitter’s attention, and Twitter called me and asked if I wanted to come out and interview. I did. I got the job as part of their fledgling media team. I spent five years at Twitter.
Then I came back to New York City, and Google was hiring someone with my experience. The experience specifically that they needed was someone who understood the journalism industry and had real experience in it, but also understood how to work inside of a platform. I got the job, and I was there for three years.
After that, I quit. I went back into journalism for a year and a half. I ran two very successful podcasts. Then I decided I wanted to do something really entrepreneurial and different. I started a business. I’m the CEO of my own candle company with my partner, Ingrid Nilsen, and we have, again, used storytelling inside of that business to have an incredibly successful two years.”
Written By Kara Williams
Photos By Izzy Myszak