This year marks 14 years since I founded Sway Group. Back then, I didn’t think much about what it meant to be a female founder of a marketing agency — I was just starting a business and happened to be a woman.
Flash forward to today, and I see just how meaningful that is. Sway is still women-owned (now with amazing partners) and thriving, and that fact hit me hard last week when I found myself in a room with 240 other female agency owners at the Women’s Agency Ownership Summit.
The Summit was organized by Christy Hiler and Jean Freeman, two powerhouses who founded Own It, an organization created to benchmark, elevate, and increase the number of women-owned agencies in the advertising space.
I tend to judge conferences by two metrics; the amount of notes I take and the number of meaningful connections that I make. This Summit killed it on both counts. Every single session was designed to provide the audience with tangible takeaways. Some highlights:
- A Legal & Accounting panel that somehow managed to not be dull or boring (seriously, it was great)
- A Biz Dev & Pitching panel that left me with three full pages of notes
- Jo McKinney’s AI keynote that turned my AI dread into AI excitement
- A kickass keynote by Lori Murphree about all things M&A. Did you know that 40% of business are owned by women, but less than 1% of M&A value flows to women? WHAT THE HECK?
- SeeHer’s fun case study that highlighted their amazing work to make sure that we make “nothing about her without her” (Related: Can you think of a better rationale for influencer marketing?)
- Connecting in real life with the wonderful, women-owned Worldwide Partners’ agencies that were in attendance
- Becoming friends with supportive and successful women who have already provided me with inspiration, commiseration, and a pile of ideas to take into 2025
I’m already excited for next year’s Summit — and to seeing how much more we can accomplish together!
Danielle
