Janet Kestin is co-founder of the Swim leadership lab. In 2012, she and partner Nancy Vonk, were inspired to leave their long-time CCO roles with ambition to close the huge leadership skills gap for creative people. Today Swim supports the success of leaders at top agencies and creative companies around the world.
Janet was Co-Chief Creative Officer of Ogilvy Toronto with Nancy for 13 years. Their teams delivered work like Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty and “Diamond Shreddies”, garnering One Show and D&AD pencils, the Grand Clio, the Creativity Awards Grand Prize and two Cannes Grand Prix. Janet has judged The One Show, D&AD, Cannes Lions, and many others. She was the foreman of D&AD’s “Writing for Advertising” jury in 2014 and is among the chosen few featured in the 2018 edition of D&AD’s The Copy Book: How Some of the Best Advertising Writers in the World Write Their Advertising.
Janet and Nancy are the authors of Pick Me, a staple in advertising schools from Texas to Turkey. In 2017, their HarperCollins book, Darling, You Can’t Do Both (And Other Noise to Ignore on Your Way Up) was named a top book on leadership by Inc. magazine.
They were on Advertising Age’s 2012 list of “100 Most Influential Women in Advertising” and were among Creativity magazine’s “Top 50 Most Creative People” of ‘08. They have been honored with ‘women of the year’ awards twice, by Women of Influence and AWNY (Advertising Women of New York). They were inducted into the AMA Hall of Legends and are recipients of other recognition for their lifetime of achievements including the Les Usherwood Award (ADCC) in ‘21, the Hall of Marketing Gold and The One Club for Creativity Hall of Fame in ‘22.
Janet speaks at companies, schools and organizations who seek new ideas for advancing women's success, like UCLA, Google, and Lean In. In ‘16, she helped design the creative leadership stream at Factry, the school of creativity sciences founded by Sid Lee leaders.