Liana Schwarz
Senior Vice President, Social Action
Liana Schwarz is Participant Media’s Senior Vice President, Social Action, where she oversees the creation and implementation of advocacy campaigns for Participant’s films.
Prior to joining Participant, Liana served as Political Director for Laurie and Larry David and as Advisor to the David Family Foundation, where she oversaw the David’s political and charitable activities. Liana served as Executive Director of the Stop Global Warming Virtual March (www.stopglobalwarming.org), and played a strategic role in all of Laurie David’s global warming projects including the Academy Award®-winning An Inconvenient Truth, Laurie David and Sheryl Crow’s Stop Global Warming college tour, HBO’s Too Hot Not to Handle and two books. She was also Special Advisor to Earth to America, the first of its kind comedy special about global warming, which aired on TBS in 2005.
Starting in 2001 Liana also served as Director of Special Initiatives for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), where she created and implemented unique programs that intersected communications, development and advocacy to promote NRDC’s priorities and oversaw the organization’s outreach and communications to the entertainment industry. She also served on the staff advisory committee for the NRDC Advocacy Center in Washington D.C.
In 2002 and 2004 Liana was the NRDC Producer of Earth to LA, a night of music, message and comedy, which raised more money than any other event in the organization’s history. In 2003 she executive produced The Rolling Stones' Turn Up the Heat to Fight Global Warming, a free concert in partnership with NRDC, which garnered unprecedented media attention to the issue of global warming.
During the 2000 presidential campaign cycle, Liana was the Director of Entertainment Industry Outreach for the California Democratic Coordinated Campaign, where she served as the liaison to the Hollywood community. Prior to that she was the Director of Special Projects and Special Assistant to the CEO for the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. Prior to moving to Los Angeles, Liana was a senior associate with Schrayer and Associates, Inc., a political consulting firm in Washington, D.C. that specializes in strategic planning, grassroots organizing and political strategies for non-profit organizations, trade associations and businesses.
Liana was recently featured in W magazine’s May 2007 feature on West Coast power brokers keeping Hollywood connected with Washington. She is active in many local and national political and philanthropic organizations. She is a founding member of the NRDC’s Global Leadership Council. She has served as a Salvin Fellow for the Anti-Defamation League and served two terms as Chairwoman of the LA Jewish Federation’s Kolot Division. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona and studied at the University of London.
