Jessica Walsh is in the 0.1 percent. That’s how few founders of ad agencies with national or international accounts are female, according to Ad Age. Ms. Walsh, 33, a graphic designer and art director who started the firm &Walsh last year, is determined to increase this astoundingly low-sounding figure. And so she also started Ladies, Wine and Design: a nonprofit that runs free events, talks and portfolio reviews for women and nonbinary people.
“It was just always a dream of mine to have an agency that was entirely my own,” Ms. Walsh said. “There are so few women-founded creative agencies out there. I want to see more of them.” A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, Ms. Walsh evolved her lush, tactile style partnering with the graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister when she was in her mid-20s. She also worked on a number of personal passion projects, including 40 Days of Dating, a popular blog written with Timothy Goodman, an artist, that they turned into a book.
And she’s hired around 30 people at &Walsh to strategize branding, advertising and social media campaigns for clients from tech giants like Apple and Snapchat to small start-ups such as the Riveter and Pet Plate. Ms. Walsh keeps long hours, extended by social media. “Work is my passion and I love that work and life is intertwined,” she said. “I work with a lot of my family. I work with a lot of my close friends on projects together. To me, it doesn’t feel like a burden. However, I don’t ask that of our employees! I’m really proud that we’re not a sweatshop like many other agencies are.”
After researching her, I find Jessica Walsh really inspiring. It is a life dream to lead my own creative agency and be at the top, but I never realised how difficult it is for women to do that. Jessica Walsh did, and for that she must be incredibly talented. She spoke to DeZeen about one of her earliest mentors: Paula Sher, who was a big inspiration. Sher even got Walsh one of her first major jobs through recommending her, which is amazing.
I would say my visual style is a lot more stripped back than &Walsh's brash visual identity. But I don't feel that that really matters, even though I'm not that keen on branding and advertising, I feel like I align with their ethos'.
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