How Swift CEO Liz Valentine Builds Innovative Digital Marketing Teams

How I Hire

As CEO and Co-Founder of Swift, a Portland-based, client-founded creative agency, Liz Valentine leads her team in making brilliant digital work for notable brands like Google, Gatorade, PayPal, Venmo, and many others. Liz began her career at Nike and brings over twenty years of experience in digital marketing to her current role. In 2014, Swift was acquired by the global data, tech, and creative powerhouse WPP. Liz was brought on as CEO of Wunderman Thompson West and Mobile for North America in 2019. She’ll share her inclusive, values-driven approach to building creative teams. We’ll also hear her hiring advice to leaders of fast-growing startups.

Highlights from our conversation include:

• Entrepreneurial thinking and digital innovation (2:10)
• Starting a creative agency (3:55)
• Her approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion (7:56)
• How she looks for candidates who thrive in an agency environment (11:26)
• “Swiftology” and how she assesses value-alignment (14:25)
• Making the shift to virtual work (18:43)
• Culture “fit” vs. culture “add” (21:19)
• What changed for Liz after the WPP acquisition (22:11)
• Hiring differences between Swift and WT (24:02)
• Overseeing values-driven hiring on a large scale (26:59)
• The many hats a modern CMO has to wear (29:15)
• Marketing during an economic downturn (30:34)

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