Livia Esterhazy: My story, as told to Elisabeth Easther

Livia Esterhazy says every second breath we take comes from the ocean. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Livia Esterhazy has been CEO of WWF-NZ since 2017, and is deeply committed to preserving and nurturing wildlife and our natural environments. Today, June 8, is World Oceans Day.

'My grandfather was a count and a member of the Hungarian Parliament. When the politicians voted on whether Hitler could take all the Hungarian Jews to work camps, my grandfather was the only one to vote no. He denounced them, saying they had blood on their hands. He tried to get as many Jews out as he could before being captured and sent to Siberia. My father had to escape, darting through woods and beneath trains till he reached Vienna. Because money had been sent to Switzerland, dad went to hotel school in Lausanne. He became best friends with Oberoi and Hilton and a new world opened up to him.

'My parents met at a ball in Kathmandu in 1968. Mum was the governess to the French ambassador's children and dad was general manager of the Oberoi Intercontinental Hotel there. Even though dad was 17 years older than mum, he determined that night they'd marry and nine months later they did. I was born in Calcutta when he was opening the Oberoi there. Then we moved to Singapore, Korea, Pakistan, Delhi. I've also lived in Melbourne, Sydney and Bordeaux. By the age of 21, I had moved house 17 times.

'I was pulled out of many schools. Leaving friends wasn't easy, and trying to make new friends was tough. But one thing my mother drilled into us, no matter what happens in life, there is always a silver lining. I've had roles that have been awful. I've taken risks that have failed but, when one thing doesn't work, another door will open.

'I was bad at maths, but at 15, I decided I wanted to be a commercial pilot. I worked really hard at maths and physics and a year later started learning to fly at Bankstown Airport. This was before I'd learned to drive.

'I started my commercial theory at the end of high school, but that summer mum wanted me to go to France to see my grandmother. I was 18 and the plane was a Boeing 747 400. I told the air hostess I was a pilot — girls back then weren't flying planes — so they invited me to sit in the jump seat. Being in a 1.5sq m box with two older men was boring. From take-off, the computer took over and they talked and did nothing. They were also quite misogynistic. I loved flying but this was not for me, so I ended up in France having to rethink my whole life.

Livia Esterhazy, WWF-NZ chief executive, at Makara Beach, near Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell

'Eventually I went back to Sydney and got a commerce degree. My first job was selling tickets for a small French airline. I didn't like it, but it taught me how to craft a story to sell something. Then I moved into software. I learnt a lot about IT and was quite young when I moved to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, at the forefront of online banking.

'When our two kids were young, my husband and I moved from Australia to Europe. We lived in a little Swiss village, and had our third child, our son, in France. But it wasn't working for us, and because my husband was a Kiwi, we moved to Wellington. Our youngest was 8 months when a role came up at Ogilvy, the ad agency. They wanted an MD, so my husband said I should go for it, and he'd be Mr Mum. But after a year in Wellington — I'd been in the job eight months — he announced he was out of there.

'I went back to Australia for Christmas, to lick my wounds. I didn't know if I could carry on. I had three young kids, and leading an ad agency was new to me and intense. Then, three months later, in spite of winning some big clients, my role was made redundant. I'd lost husband and job. I'd try not to cry loudly, so the kids wouldn't hear. But I wasn't dying, we had a roof over our heads, the children were healthy, I just had to find a way through.

'Advertising is a tough gig, even though you can do genuine good with it. We did campaigns for Women's Refuge. And with NZTA, trying to help young boys drive safely, but after 10 years I'd had enough. Fortunately though, while I was at Saatchis, I met Nigel, who was head of recruitment for the NZ Defence Force. We'd become friends, and some years later when we weren't working together, we came together. One day he said, "Liv. You're walking through treacle every day, going against your values, but you can do something completely different. You're not alone. I'm here."

'I took the opportunity to leave advertising, because I wanted to do something more positive with my skills. Then I panicked. But I heard mum telling me to find the silver lining. I held on to that for dear life and, sure enough, Nigel came home with an ad for the role of CEO at WWF-NZ.

'It can be overwhelming when you learn about nature's degraded state. But we must also realise the power of the individual. Because you can make a difference. Governments listen and make decisions based on letters or petitions urging change. One less serving of red meat each week. Reducing waste. Biking to work. Those seemingly small things make a difference and lead to systemic change.

'Some of our core work is around oceans and marine species and one thing blows my socks off — every second breath we take is from the ocean. We're taught trees make oxygen, that we must stop cutting down the Amazon, and that's true, but the ocean plays a vital role in producing oxygen and removing carbon. One breath from the trees, one from the ocean. Yet we are suffocating the ocean with plastic, seabed mining, over-fishing. New Zealand is responsible for the fourth largest economic zone in the world and science recommends we protect 30 per cent of our ocean — but less than 1 per cent of our waters are fully protected. You can't underestimate the importance of the ocean, and not just for providing food and looking beautiful, but as an entire system to keep all species, including us, alive.